R Scuti
Edward
Pigott, together with John Goodricke became one of the fathers’ of variable star astronomy
when they worked together in York 1781-86. Following the death of Goodricke in
1786 Pigott moved to the city of Bath where he continued to observe the sky. In
1795 he discovered another variable star which today is known as R Scuti and
the summertime is a good time to look for it.
Close to
Messier 11, the wild duck cluster which is in the small constellation of Scutum
the Shield lies a very interesting variable star, R Scuti. At its brightest it
can rise to magnitude 4.4 and be visible to the naked eye, but can drop to
magnitude 8.6 when binoculars are needed to find it.
It belongs
to the rare type of RV Tauri type variables which are yellow supergiant stars
of immense size but of low mass and density. These stars pulsate and R Scuti
varies and becomes bright over a period of about every 140 days.
It’s always
good fun to replicate those early observations Goodricke and Pigott and by
doing so it can help to learn your way around the sky using the naked eye or
just simple binoculars.
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