Project

#580937
Dr Paul Leyland
Participant

Naked eye observations of delta Cephei introduces people to variable star observing.  This particular star has the benefit of being bright (visible in light polluted areas), good comparison stars nearby, circumpolar (it doesn’t matter what time of year it is and so suitable for long-term observation) and varies markedly over a short time scale (conducive to making it interesting to beginners).

Pooling the results of several of your members will help bring out the variations more clearly and phase-folding observations made over a period of weeks or months should show the nice sawtooth light curve of a classical Cepheid.

Somewhere I still have the observations I made as a young teenager.  It’s how I became interested in observing variables.