Astrognome 100 Great Stars No 83 SS Cygni

 

SS Cygni

Next to the massive novae like stars such as Nova Hercules 1934, the dwarf nova such as SS Cygni in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan resemble a string of Chinese fire crackers. SS Cygni is the prototype of these dwarf novae. SS Cygni stars produce scaled down versions of classical novae.

SS Cygni is one of the best observed of these star and around every 50 days it will increase in brightness from magnitude 15 to 8. This rise in magnitude typically take between 1 to 2 days. The main difference between classical and dwarf novae is that a classical novae is made up with a binary system consisting of a small white dwarf and a larger giant star, while the SS Cygni or dwarf novae system consists of a white dwarf and a red dwarf.