by Bill Pellerin, HAS president & editor of the GuideStar

Object: R Corona Borealis / R Cor Bor / R Crb Class: Protypical variable star
Magnitude: 9.8
R.A.: 14 h, 48 m, 34 s
Dec: + 28 degrees, 9 minutes, 24 seconds
Distance: 6000 ly
Constellation: Corona Borealis
Optics needed: Telescope

Why this object is interesting

This object was my ‘shallow sky’ object in May 2008. While I normally wouldn’t repeat an object I’m making an exception here because this variable star is now brighter than it has been since the summer of 2007.

This star sets just at about 11:00 p.m. in October, so you’ll have to catch it early. R Crb is an irregular variable and the system consists of a star surrounded by a cloud of gas and dust that, from time to time, obscures the star and causes its magnitude to drop from 6 to about 15. Since each magnitude drop is a factor of 2.51 in brightness the 9 magnitude drop represents an almost 250 times drop in brightness. ... Click read more to see the rest of the story.

There will be no HAS meeting at UH Friday, Nov 7, 2014. Instead, members are encouraged to attend the 2014 All Clubs meeting at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on November 7, 2014. Information about this event is available at this web address: http://www.astronomyday.net/regional_meeting.html. Note that this date is the first Friday of November and the Annual Meeting of the Houston Astronomical Society would otherwise be on this day. As voted on by the membership, the 2014 Annual Meeting will be held December 5th instead.