Slowly pulsating B-type star

Their pulsations are non-radial, that is, they vary in shape rather than volume; different parts of the star are expanding and contracting simultaneously.

Improvements in photometry had made finding smaller changes in magnitude easier, and they had found that a high percentage of hot stars were intrinsically variable.

[6] Ten had been discovered by 1993, though Waelkens was unsure if the prototype was actually a member and recommended referring to the group as slowly pulsating B (SPB) stars.

Six stars, namely Iota Herculis, 53 Piscium, Nu Eridani, Gamma Pegasi, HD 13745 (V354 Persei) and 53 Arietis had been found to exhibit both Beta Cephei and SPB variability.

[10] The following list contains selected slowly pulsating B-type stars that are of interest to amateur or professional astronomy.

A visual band light curve for V469 Persei (53 Persei), plotted from data published by Huang et al. (1994). This star was the prototype for this class of variable stars. [ 5 ]