Saturday, 6 February 2016

Astrognome Astronomy Thomas Anderson 1853-1932

Thomas Anderson

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on February 6th 1853, Thomas Anderson would discover two important novae, Nova Aurigae 1892 which reached a magnitude of 3.8 and Nova Persei 1901 which reached magnitude 0.2.



 It has since been classified as GK Persei as it appears to have several outbursts since its discovery. However since 1990 these outbursts have become a little more regular typically brightening by about 2 magnitudes with the outbursts lasting a couple of 
months.



Thus, GK Persei seems to have changed from a classical nova to something resembling a typical dwarf nova-type cataclysmic variable star.

Anderson produced his own star charts and discovered over 50 new variable stars.

 He died on the 31st March 1932.

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