PV Cep in deep fade

[David Boyd]

PV Cephei, the young Herbig AeBe star which illuminates Gyulbudaghian’s Variable Nebula, has gone into a deep fade and is now fainter than I have seen it at any time over the last 10 years.

Normally brighter than 17th magnitude in R, it dropped to R=18.5 on 8th Sept and to 19.2 on 13th Sept. As a consequence the nebula has become very faint and is only detectable on long exposures. 

David

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   PV-Cephei-March-2010-September-2020.png
   

[Mike Harlow]

Also being observed by myself and Nick James.

[Nick James]

Here is a link to an animation showing how the star and nebula have changed over the last two years. I don’t think animated GIFs work in this forum.

[Grant Privett]

It really is very faint isn’t it? When the other lobe of the nebula is the brighter of the two then you know its dim.

The faintest I received in our study – August 2009 – was 18.75, so we’re in unexplored territory.

Am kind of hoping it ends up repeating the cycle we observed, so we can say its got an 11 to 12 year cycle, but thats probably too much to hope for. 🙂

[Andrew Robertson]

Fascinating watching the change over only two years.

[Nick Hewitt]

I hope it is not doing a McNeil! There are not many variable nebulae, and I don’t wish to be be made redundant just yet. 

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