A Search for Evolutionary Changes in the Periods of Cepheids Using Archival Data from the Harvard Observatory Plate Collection. III. GY Sagittae

Abstract

ABSTRACTA total of 1095 magnitude estimates for the long‐period classical Cepheid GY Sge (P = 51 days), derived from the photographic plate collections of Harvard College Observatory, Sonneberg Observatory, and Sternberg Astronomical Institute, were combined with 48 new radial velocity measures obtained using the correlation spectrometer on the 1 m reflector of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. The data, in combination with published photometry (including observations from the All Sky Automated Survey 3) and radial velocity measurements, cover a time baseline spanning 116 years. The resulting O - C data display evolutionary changes in the period of GY Sge amounting to + 203 ± 27 s yr−1, a value in good agreement with theoretical predictions for a star in the third crossing of the instability strip. Large cyclical drifts with durations of ∼23,000 days superposed on the parabolic evolutionary trend in the O - C data exhibit the positive signature of random fluctuations in pulsation period, of magnitude similar to what is found in other pulsating stars of similar period.