COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
         INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                  NUMBER 891

                               Konkoly Observatory
                               Budapest
                               1974 May 25

        HD 271227, A NEW Beta LYRAE TYPE STAR JUST
          OUTSIDE THE ERROR BOX OF LMC X-2




   Photo-electric observations have been made of two stars viz.
HD 271213 (12 mag, B31) which is the only LMC member within the
error box of LMC X-2 (or 3U 0521-72, Giacconi et al. 1973, preprint)
and HD 271227 (10.8 mag, A3), a galactic foreground star (Fehrenbach,
Duflot and Petit, 1970, Astron.Astrophys. Special Suppl, Ser. No. 1),
which is only a few minutes of arc outside the error box.
   Feast (private communication) suggested to make photometric 
observations of the first star and the second was taken as the 
comparison star. Soon it was evident that the last one was strongly 
variable. A new comparison star was taken for both objects viz. HD 35434
(9.6 mag, A3).
The observations were made with the Walraven simultaneous five-colour 
photometer (Walraven and Walraven, 1960 Bull.Astron.Inst.Netherl.
15, 67; Rijf, Tinbergen and Walraven 1969, Bull.Astron.Inst.Netherl.
20, 279) attached to the 90 cm light-collector of the Leiden Southern 
Station at the SAAO annexe in South-Africa, from December 1973
to March 1974. A preliminary reduction showed that the LMC member
HD 271213 stayed constant during these months and that the foreground
star HD 271227 is an eclipsing binary of the beta Lyrae type with a
period of 0.7765d +- .0002 e.e. and a primary minimum of 0.65 mag. deep.
The figure shows the log intensity differences variable minus comparison 
star for the Walraven B band (4260 A). The phases have been com-
computed with the formula:
          (JD - 2442050.3042) x 0.7765^-1
There is an indication that the primary minimum is slightly asymmetric 
and that the maxima are unequal. If real, it would mean that a
small extra light source is present in the system. Further observations
are however urgently needed to confirm this.




                          A.M. van GENDEREN,
                          Leiden Observatory
                          Leiden 2401.
                          The Netherlands.


                  [FIGURE 1]