Editorial

An appropriate theme for this Issue No. 33 of the Be Star Newsletter might be ``New Faces for Old Friends.'' Consider, for example, Mu Cen, discovered to have Balmer emission almost 110 years ago by W. P. Fleming. For the past two decades it has been trying to reestablish its former prominent circumstellar (CS) envelope, apparently through a series of quasi-periodic mini-outbursts. Now researchers show that these outbursts apparently coincide with the maxima from the constructive interference of at least four of six coherent NRP periods in the star. NRP and the mini-outbursts that are slowly producing another prominent CS envelope appear to be linked.

Another familiar face is that of Gamma Cas, or do we know this star? It was the first Be star to be discovered, more than 130 years ago by A. Secchi, but has not endured as a prototype for a classical Be star, especially in view of its unusually strong X-ray emission. In this issue new data from the IUE spacecraft are presented that lend further support to a prior conclusion that the star has a magnetosphere that may produce it's X-ray emission. Contributions on both Gamma Cas and Mu Cen follow earlier reports in the last issue of the Newsletter .

In WHAT'S HAPPENING we include a report on the new model for the interacting binary Be star Phi Per that emerged from recent HST observations. What a change from the model some of us advocated at the Cape Cod meeting in 1975! But the consensus is still that mass transfer spun up the Be star. But the new revelation is that the secondary is indeed a hot O-type subdwarf (suggested earlier by several researchers) that is the remnant of a more massive star that transferred its material to the Be star. Indeed, a newly-confirmed face for this Be star. Also in this issue of the Newsletter are contributions on the variable mass infall in FY CMa and the energy budget in Be stars, a report from the new Chair of the Working Group on Active B Stars, minutes from the WG meeting held at the IAU GA in Kyoto, a prospectus for the proposed meeting on the Be phenomenon in Alicante, Spain in 1999, abstracts of new papers, the newly expanded bibliography, and information on forthcoming meetings of interest to the active star community.

Beginning with items received for the next issue of the Newsletter , we plan to adopt a new publication procedure in order to communicate with the community in a more timely fashion. Contributions, including abstracts and meeting announcements will be posted on our web site shortly after they are received and undergone review by the editors. In fact we have already been doing this on an experimental basis (have you noticed?). So please make a bookmark in your web browser and check our web edition often! At irregular intervals, usually twice per year, we will collect all material received since the last issue, produce a bibliography, and publish a paper copy. We will still offer a postscript file of the entire issue. This procedure will allow us to alleviate a perennial problem that items received just after an issue comes out are old news by the time the next issue is published! Please let us know if you approve of the new approach.

We urge those who are receiving the paper edition of the Newsletter to inform us of address changes as soon as possible. With each mailing we have a significant number of returns that increases our cost of distributing the paper copies.

Contributions/abstracts for Issue 34 should be received by:

Send contributions by Electronic Mail to

either as LaTeX or postscript files. We are now requiring that abstracts be submitted as LaTeX files using the template provided in this issue. Illustrations should be sent by E-mail as postscript files. If it is not possible to transmit your contribution electronically, please send or fax (213-740-6342) a dark camera-ready copy.

We would like to thank those who contributed to this issue. It is your input that keeps the Newsletter both interesting and useful to the active B star community, and we look forward to receiving your contributions for Issue No. 34.

We appreciate the continuing support from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University for the production of the paper edition of the Newsletter .