COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
          INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                      Number 1782

                                     Konkoly Observatory
                                     Budapest
                                     1980 May 9


      B V OBSERVATIONS OF PLEIONE (BU Tau) 1977 - 1980


Pleione is a well known shell star. Its photometric variability was
investigated by Sharov and Lyuty (1976) who collected all available photometric
observations of the star. They observed ed a minimum in 1973 connected with a
new shell outburst of BU Tau. In 1974 and 1975 Sharov and Lyuty observed the
beginning of a slow increase in B and V.

New B and V observations were made with the 75 cm telescope of the Wilhelm
Foerster Sternwarte, Berlin, an uncooled 1P21 photomultiplier and Schott
filters BG12+GG13 for B and GG11 for V. The measurements are listed in the
table. The accuracy is about +-0.01m for V and B-V. In the figure, the B
lightcurve of Sharov and Lyuty is shown together with four mean values of our
observations. These observations show that the shell outburst still goes on as
the star has not returned to its normal maximum light.

Table

The V and B-V observations of BU Tau

Date       V       B-V    n
2443177d   5.22           3
    193    5.21   -0.12   2
    411    5.23   -0.05   6
    482    5.24   -0.03   5
    808    5.20   -0.03   2
    833    5.19   -0.02   2
    862    5.21   -0.05   3
    930    5.20   -0.04   2
   4132    5.22   -0.05   1
    169    5.22   -0.06   4
    271    5.17  +-0.00   2
    289    5.23   -0.05   3

n: Number of individual measurements of BU Tau in each colour. Comparison
star magnitudes from the Yale University Bright Star Catalogue.


                      [FIGURE 1]

  Figure 1: Total B lightcurve of BU Tau 1880 to 1980. Circles
  represent photoelectric observations.



U. HOPP, S. WITZIGMANN
Wilhelm Foerster Sternwarte
D 1000 Berlin 41, F.R.G.

Reference:

Sharov, A.S., Lyuty, V.M., 1976, in IAU Symposium No. 70, 105 ed. A. Slettebak,
   D.Reidel Publ. Co. Dordrecht [BIBCODE 1976IAUS...70..105S ]