COMMISSION 27 OF THE I.A.U. INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS Number 3235 Konkoly Observatory Budapest 8 September 1988 HU ISSN 0374 - 0676 VARIABILITY IN THE HIGH LATITUDE Be STAR JL212 (=CPD -56d154) Star number 212 in the survey by Jaidee & Lynga (1969) has Stromgren photometry by Kilkenny (1984) which indicates it to be of spectral type near B2. An analysis by Keenan, Dufton & McKeith (1982) found JL212 to have normal abundances for a population I star although it apparently lies at z = -3.2 kpc from the galactic plane. They also noted that differences between surface gravity determinations using spectroscopic measurements of H_epsilon and photometry of the H_beta line suggested that JL212 might be an emission line star. Subsequently, spectroscopy by Kilkenny & Muller (1988) showed that JL212 did indeed have H_beta in emission. Keenan et al (1982) found (T_eff, log g, V sin i) = (19200, 3.7, 219) from high dispersion spectroscopy; using moderate dispersion (30 A/mm) Kilkenny (1989) obtains (17500, 3.5, 225) with a distance from the galactic plane z = -3.3 kpc, which is in good agreement with the Keenan et al (1982) result and is also extremely unusual for a Be star. A very similar star, SB357 (=CD -37d316) et z = -6 kpc has recently been shown by Kilkenny (1988) to be a variable star with no obvious short-term (~hours) variation but clear variability on a time scale of a few days or longer. It therefore seemed worthwhile to examine the SAAO 'archive' photometry of JL212 in a search for possible variability. The uvby and UBV(RI)c data are summarised in Tables 1 and 2 where the second row of figures for each date are the standard deviations of the mean values in units of 0.001 mag. All data were corrected to observations of the nearby star CPD -56d153 for which we find: s.d n s.d n V = 9.802 +- 0.009 44 y = 9.805 +- 0.004 15 (B-V) = +0.895 +- 0.005 44 (b-y) = +0.546 +- 0.005 15 (U-B) = +0.494 +- 0.007 44 m_1 = +0.258 +- 0.007 15 (V-R)_c = +0.480 +- 0.004 17 c_1 = +0.439 +- 0.014 15 (V-I)_c = +0.951 +- 0.005 17 Table 1 Stromgren photometry of JL212 (=CPD -56d154) HJD V (b-y) m_1 c_1 n 2444109.51 10.320 -0.062 +0.076 +0.291 2 2 1 4 2 4119.54 10.345 -0.067 +0.089 +0.277 5 5 3 5 8 4120.58 10.340 -0.065 +0.080 +0.281 2 2 1 2 7 5251.43 10.313 -0.060 +0.087 +0.261 1 5252.45 10.318 -0.065 +0.085 +0.278 1 Although CPD -56d153 is not an ideal comparison star for JL212, being much redder (early K by colour) it is of similar brightness end is only ~ arcminutes away from JL212. CPD -56d153 was always reduced to the usual 'all-sky' standards for UBV(RI)c (Menzies, Banfield & Laing 1980) and uvby photometry (Crawford & Barnes 1970) and appears to be of constant brightness. For JL212 there is only one reasonably long sequence of monitoring, that on HJD 2447005, which shows no variation bigger than about 0.01 mag over ~2.5 hours. From night to night comparison, it seems quite clear that JL212 is variable with an observed range of ~0.04 mag. The data obtained are from 1979, 1981 and 1982 (uvby) and 1987 (UBVRI) and show no sign of the much larger scale variations (~0.2 mag) seen in SB357. Table 2 UBV(RI)c photometry of JL212 HJD V (B-V) (U-B) (V-R) (V-I) n 2447005.51 10.329 -0.158 -0.646 28 3 3 3 7006.62 10.330 -0.155 -0.653 6 1 3 3 7007.62 10.341 -0.160 -0.656 -0.070 -0.163 1 7009.61 10.323 -0.158 -0.652 11 4 4 4 7011.58 10.326 -0.165 -0.654 7 3 5 4 7013.55 10.343 -0.154 -0.651 4 2 4 3 7021.62 10.321 -0.157 -0.651 18 5 6 3 7023.59 10.316 -0.152 -0.661 -0.061 -0.142 2 4 1 4 10 4 7025.62 10.351 -0.158 -0.656 -0.063 -0.145 8 2 5 2 5 9 7068.49 10.356 -0.155 -0.650 -0.065 -0.150 2 2 1 1 8 9 7070.52 10.347 -0.157 -0.647 -0.071 -0.149 2 1 1 1 1 9 7071.47 10.351 -0.164 -0.646 -0.068 -0.156 2 2 2 1 2 4 7078.43 10.309 -0.161 -0.654 -0.061 -0.139 2 6 6 2 3 8 D KILKENNY J SPENCER JONES F MARANG S A Astronomical Observatory PO Box 9 Observatory 7935 South Africa References: Crawford, D.L. & Barnes, J., 1970. Astr. J. 75, 978. [BIBCODE 1970AJ.....75..978C ] Jaidee, S. & Lynga, G., 1969. Arkiv Astronomi 5, 345. [BIBCODE 1969ArA.....5..345J ] Keenan, F.P., Dufton, P.L. & McKeith, C.D., 1982. Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 200, 673. [BIBCODE 1982MNRAS.200..673K ] Kilkenny, D., 1984. Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 211, 969. [BIBCODE 1984MNRAS.211..969K ] Kilkenny, D., 1988. Inf. Bull. Var. Stars 3179. Kilkenny, D., 1989. In preparation. Kilkenny, D. & Muller, S., 1988. SAAO Circular 13, in press. [BIBCODE 1989SAAOC..13...69K ] Menzies, J.W., Banfield, R.M. & Laing, J.D., 1980. SAAO Circular 5, 149. [BIBCODE 1980SAAOC...1..149M ]