COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
        INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                     NUMBER 177

                                        Konkoly Observatory
                                        Budapest
                                        18 January 1967



                     VZ TELESCOPII

        The star VZ Tel ( alpha 1900 = 18h11m18s, delta 1900 = -52d08'7)
was discovered as a variable by C. D. Boyd (Harv. Ann. 90, 243, 1939)
and is classified as of type "RCrB ? " in the 1948-edition of Kukarkin
and Parenago's GCVS and as of type "SR" in the 1958-edition of the
same catalogue.
        Estimates of the star have been made at the Astronomical
Institute of the University of Louvain on 262 plates which have been
taken in the course of the years 1960-66 with the 10" Metcalf telescope
of the Boyden Observatory, mainly by the senior writer.
        The results of these estimates are given in graphical form
in the Figure. The light variation which they reveal is neither that of
a R CrB-type star, nor that of a RV-Tau star with its typical alternation 
of deep and undeep minima. A cycle with a single maximum
and a single minimum but with a changing duration and amplitude is
what appears to be present, so that the star should really be classified
as a semi-regular variable.

                           [FIGURE 1]

       Table 1 summarizes the results of a least squares treatment
applied to the epochs of observed maximum light, which yielded the
ephemeris

              JD max = 2438190 + 63.66d E
                          +-3.5   +-.38


       With this ephemeris phases were computed for all the 
observations which were afterwards combined in a mean lightcurve.
This curve is represented by the dashed line in the Figure. That its
amplitude Delta m = 1.5m is definitely smaller than that of most of the
individual cycles is of course mainly due to the to and fro shifts of
the latter with respect to the mean cycle.
       All magnitudes have been derived from star counts compared 
with the Tables in Groningen Publication No 43. The authors
have no information about the colour or the spectral class of the
variable.

                                         Table 1.

          JD max                   JD max   
          (Obs.)     E    O - C     ( Obs.)    E    O - C
       2437180       0   + 8.3d   2438583      22   +10.7d
           486       5   - 4.0        645      23   + 9.1
           792      10   -16.4        965      28   +10.7
          8178      16   -12.3       9020      29   + 2.0
           264      17   +10.0        255      33   -17.6





                                    A. van HOOF
                                    E. MERTENS

                             Astronomical Institute
                             University of Louvain
                                   (Belgium)