Portrait of a Variable Star: The Tombaugh Star Outburst Movie (Abstract)

Volume 34 number 1 (2006)

David H. Levy

Abstract

(Abstract only) Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and a lifelong AAVSO friend, lived in Las Cruces for the last 50 years of his life; his family still lives here. During his search for trans-Saturnian planets he discovered what he thought was a nova in outburst on March 23, 1931. Although he reported it to his superior at the time, news of the discovery remained buried in the plate archive at Lowell Observatory until I found it while doing research for his biography. A search of the plate archives at Harvard subsequently revealed nine other outbursts of what was apparently a cataclysmic variable of high galactic latitude. Now named TV Corvi, the star was first visually observed in outburst on March 23, 1990. On February 2, 2005, I caught the star rising in the southeast and climbing rapidly in magnitude. The movie consists of several images taken throughout that night.