COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
              INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                         Number 3504

                                                   Konkoly Observatory
                                                   Budapest
                                                   10 August 1990

                                                   HU ISSN 0374 - 0676


       THE IRAS SOURCE 04430-2356 = NSV 1710 IS A MIRA STAR


   Recently Klemola (1990) directed the attention to the strong variability 
of the infrared source IRC-20062 = IRAS 04430-2356 in the blue range. The
source had been included in the NSV Catalogue (Kukarkin et al. 1982) (NSV
1710) because of the large dispersion of the IRC measurements (Neugebauer et
al. 1969). As was already noted by Klemola the star is identical with a red
object of the POSS. It is, however, neither identical with CoD -24deg2554
(Neugebauer et al.) nor with CoD -24deg2552 (Bidelman 1980), but is situated
nearly half-way between the two - see the Figure. It should be remarked that
because of their faintness CoD -24deg2552 and -24deg2549 are not depicted on
the CoD chart. The (wrong) spectral type K2 given originally also results in
the erroneous identification by Neugebauer, as CoD -24deg2554 = HD 30271.  An
obviously correct spectral type M8 comes from Hansen and Blanco (1975); it
corresponds to the colour index of B-V = 2.6m estimated by Klemola.
   By examining about 300 Sonneberg blue sensitive Sky Patrol plates of the
years 1952 to 1983 (centred at 5h-20deg) I found that this is a Mira star with
a period of approximately 447d. On the POSS sheets (1953 Nov. 11/12) by
chance the object is at maximum, this fact is confirmed by 4 Sonneberg plates
of 1953 October to December. Seven further maxima could be found in the
examined material. They include the very bright one of 1964 December, when the
star reached the brightness of CoD -24deg2554 (10.3m pg. according to HD
catalogue); consequently the amplitude in the blue spectral range amounts to
7.5 mag at least, if the Lick minimum of 17.5m - 18.0m mentioned by Klemola is
taken into account. Possibly the maximum is double-peaked (Ludendorff class
gamma 2, see Hoffmeister, Richter, Wenzel 1985, p.59). The data fit well into
Keenan's (1966) period-spectrum relationship.


                               [FIGURE 1]



                                             W. WENZEL

                                        Sternwarte Sonneberg
                                    Zentralinstitut für Astrophysik
                                    Akademie der Wissenschaften der
                                                DDR



References:

Bidelman, W.P.: 1980, Publ. Warner Swasey Obs. 2, No. 6.
Hansen, O.L., Blanco, V.M.: 1975, Astron. J., 80, 1011. [BIBCODE 1975AJ.....80.1011H ]
Hoffmeister, C., Richter, G., Wenzel, W.: 1985, Variable Stars, Springer-
       Verlag, New York
Keenan, P.C.: 1966, Astrophys. J., Suppl. Ser., 13, 333. [BIBCODE 1966ApJS...13..333K ]
Klemola, A.R.: 1990, IAU Circ. 5031. [BIBCODE 1990IAUC.5031....2K ]
Kukarkin, B.V. et al.: 1982, New Catalogue of Suspected Variable Stars,
       Nauka, Moscow [BIBCODE 1982ncsv.book.....K ]
Neugebauer, G. et al.: 1969, Two-Micron Sky Survey, NASA, Washington [BIBCODE 1969tmss.book.....N ]