Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  Barnard's Merope Nebula  ·  IC 349  ·  Maia Nebula  ·  Merope Nebula  ·  NGC 1432  ·  NGC 1435  ·  The star Atlas (27Tau)  ·  The star Celaeno (16Tau)  ·  The star Electra (17Tau)  ·  The star Merope (23Tau)  ·  The star Pleione (28Tau)  ·  The star Sterope I (21Tau)  ·  The star Taygeta (19Tau)  ·  The star ηTau
Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars, Remco Kemperman
Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars
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Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars

Revision title: Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars

Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars, Remco Kemperman
Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars
Powered byPixInsight

Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars

Revision title: Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars

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Description

This image was the result of 2 nights of recordings variable stars in the cluster. There are loads of variable stars in it.
I Have found 4 of Them to be recognizably variable within a period of 4 hours.

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  • Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars, Remco Kemperman
    Original
  • Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars, Remco Kemperman
    B
  • Final
    Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars, Remco Kemperman
    C
  • Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars, Remco Kemperman
    D

B

Title: Screenshot AAVSO VPhot showing all the identified variables

Description: This is the starfield in throught the Luminance filter in AAVSO's online tool VPhot for photometric analysis.
All the green tags are known to be variable stars that VPhot recognizes. There are even more but those were over saturated or too faint to get good sinal to noise ratio on. So there are loads of them within the Pleiades cluster. I will make a final image with the inset of the 4 variables I was able to recognize real variability in one night

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C

Title: Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars

Description: There are lots of variablle stars in this cluster. 4 of them showed their variablility during my recordings.

NSV 1300. which is of type BY Draconis variables. These are rotating variables, usually type K or M, so orange/red stars. What you see here are starspots (sunspots on a star) spinning in and out of the frame. It runs in 4.5 hours and you see almost 2 laps.
V1188, which is an eclipsing binary star with a period of 13.88 hours orbits. It varies between 12.3 and 11.85.
According to AAVSO, the spectrum class, or the star color of V1188, is uncertain but for now set to A0. If it is A0 then the B-V index should be 0. (B,magnitude - V,magnitude). If my measurements are correct, it's more like 0.5. Which would correspond to type F7 or F8. Pretty nice this, really measuring things 😊. Later I will take another spectrum of the star with my StarAnalyzer to check whether it is really an F class star.
YZ Tau also shows variability. This is an RR Lyrae type variable. with a period of 9 hours. These are pulsating stars that shrink and grow periodically.
Here you can already see a contraction (getting hotter) and expansion (getting colder) of the star.
OU Tau is also a BY type star, a rotating star with a stellar spot on it. It rotates in 9.5 hours. In this case you can already see 1 cautious dip when the starspot rotates in and out of our image

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D

Title: Pleiades cluster, enhanced contrast

Description: I enhanced the contrast as I found the first version a bit flat in hindsight.
- curves stretch
- local contrast enhancement with DarkStucture Enhancement in PixInsight

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Pleiades cluster + 4 variable stars, Remco Kemperman