COMMISSION 27 AND 42 OF THE IAU
                   INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                               Number 3816

                                                         Konkoly Observatory
                                                         Budapest
                                                         2 December 1992

                                                         HU ISSN 0374 - 0676


                   INVESTIGATION OF FOUR ERUPTIVE STARS
                          ON SONNEBERG PLATES


GRO J0422+32 Per

   The locality of this Compton Gamma Ray Observatory transient (first
announcement by Paciesas et al. 1992) has been checked on 888 Sonneberg Sky
Patrol plates taken between 1928 and 1992 mainly by P. Ahnert, H. Huth and
B. Fuhrmann. No further eruption could be detected. The threshold of the
examined exposures is between 12.5m and 14.0m pg. Apart from the seasonal sun
gaps the plates are fairly uniformly distributed over the time interval quoted.
Especially the gaps of the Harvard material (Shao 1992) are filled by
good-quality exposures.


V360 Her

   In continuation of my earlier observations (Wenzel 1961) I checked the
candidate of the compilation of Duerbeck (1987) on 256 plates taken mainly with
astrographs of an aperture of 40 cm by C. Hoffmeister, G. A. Richter,
G. Hacke and W. Wenzel. Duerbeck's star does not show any variations larger
than the normal scattering of a near-threshold object, nor are there
indications of the presence of a variable in the vicinity. The plates are
scattered over the years 1938 to 1992. The remark of Parenago (1947), the
supposed nova image might be a defect on the Paris discovery plate of 1892, is
unfounded because obviously the photographs taken for the Catalogue du Ciel
consist of triple exposures, where blemishes can easily be excluded.


V2109 Oph

   There are 9 Sonneberg plates of the time before the date of the discovery
plate (1969 June 21, m_r=10.8m-MacConnell 1977), showing the star at the
following photographic (blue) magnitudes (system of Harvard Selected Area 157):

1969 May 17.9 UT  invis. >12m pg
     June 8.9              8.9     (2 plates)
          9.9              9.5     (2 plates)
         10.9              9.2
         11.9             10.0
         12.9             10.2
         17.9             10.8     (2 plates)


V1274 Sgr

   A fairly slow course of the discovery maximum is shown by four additional
plates of our collection, as given in the following table; the observations of
the discoverer Wild (1954) are designated by W:

1954 Aug. 2 UT            12m pg       W
     Aug. 3               12           W
     Aug. 4.9     invis. >11
     Aug. 26.9            10.4
     Aug. 30              10.5         W
     Sep. 1.9             10.4
     Sep. 23.9            10.4
     Oct. 3.9             10.4:

(system of Harvard SA 134). It should be noted that the map of Li Jing et al.
(1984) places the object at a wrong position, whereas the position of the
variable on Duerbeck's (1987) chart coincides with our findings.

   This work has been supported by funds of the Bundesministerium fur 
Forschung und Technologie under contract no. 05-5S0414.


                                     W. WENZEL
                                     Sternwarte
                               D O-6400 Sonneberg, FRG



References:

Duerbeck, H.W.: 1987, A Reference Catalogue and Atlas of Galactic Novae, Space
      Sci. Rev., 45, nos. 1-2. [BIBCODE 1987rcag.book.....D ]
Li Jing et al.: 1984, Publ. Beijing Astron. Obs. 4, p. 1. [BIBCODE 1984PBeiO...4....1L ]
McConnell, D.J.: 1977, IBVS 1340.
Paciesas, W.S., et al.: 1992, IAU Circ. 5580. [BIBCODE 1992IAUC.5580....1P ]
Parenago, P.P.: 1947, Perem. Zvezdy, 6, p. 215.
Shao, C.-Y.: 1992, IAU Circ. 5606. [BIBCODE 1992IAUC.5606....2S ]
Wenzel, W.: 1961, Mitt. Veranderl. Sterne Nr. 585.
Wild, P.: 1954, IAU Circ. 1471.