The Be Star Newsletter, Volume 38 - January 2007

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Pleione fading Sebastian Otero CEA & Grupo Wezen 1 88, Buenos Aires, Argentina email:  varsao@fullzero.com.ar Received: Nov 13, 2006;  Accepted: Jan 19, 2007 Dear Be-star colleagues, The bright Be star BU Tau (Pleione) is in a faint V magnitude state right now, as expected because of the new Be-shell phase discovered earlier this year by Katahira et al. (2006). Previous Be-shell phases started in 1938 and 1972 which means there is a remarkable periodicity in Pleione's changes. This is consistent with the star being a binary system with a 34-35 year orbital period as suggested in Luthardt and Menchenkova (1994). The visual magnitude of the star is around V=5.4 (November 13, 2006), 0.4 mag. fainter than its normal state. Lightcurve available: http://ar.geocities.com/varsao/BUTau_recent.gif References: Katahira, J., et al., 2006, The Be Star Newsletter, Vol. 38 (http://astsun.astro.virginia.edu/~dam3ma/benews/volume38/whap/kat0.html) Luthardt, R. & Menchenkova, E. V, 1994, A&A, 284, 118. (http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1994A&A...284..118L) Best wishes, Sebastian.