Music of the Spheres

Abstract

Like many path-breaking events, the discovery of white dwarf pulsations happened serendipitously. In the mid-1960s, Arlo Landolt, an observational astronomer at Louisiana State University (LSU), was conducting photometric observations of some faint variable stars at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in the mountains near Tucson, Arizona. To help in counteracting variations in atmospheric transmission, Landolt performed his observations by first taking a photometric exposure on a target star and then switching to take a similar exposure on a nearby, faint star that was not variable. Alternating between the two stars every few minutes, Landolt built up a time series of observations that followed the variations in the target star’s luminosity. In processing his data later, he planned to use the recorded observations of the non-variables to establish a steady baseline against which to measure the variability of his target stars.KeywordsWhite DwarfVariable StarPlanetary NebulaGravity ModeTrap ModeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.