Polaris-More than Just the North/Pole Star

摘要

During my half-century of research on variable stars and stellar evolution, my students and I have studied a large fraction of the brightest stars. My first astronomical research paper (Demarque 8c Percy 1964) was "A Series of Solar Models." I then turned to the β Cephei Stars (aka β Canis Majoris Stars), a class of pulsating B stars with a large representation of a and β stars. Then it was 5 Scuti Stars, and then Be (γ Cas) stars-hot stars with emission-line spectra-of which there are several hundred among the naked-eye stars. Then it was on to pulsating red giants, initially ones that were bright enough for photoelectric photometry by the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). Recently, my students and I have been using AAVSO visual data on pulsating red giants, most of which are well below naked-eye brightness. Amidst all this, we have studied some bright binary stars (including the mysterious e Aurigae), magnetic stars (α~2CVn is the prototype), and bright Cepheids-including Polaris-α UMi. You get the picture: α, β, γ, δ, ε....