Common and Elite Variables, Then and Now

Volume 11 number 1 (1982)

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Dorrit Hoffleit

Yale University

Abstract

When the AAVSO was founded, variables seemed to be a rare class of stars, and intrinsic variables with very small amplitudes were practically unknonw. Now, thanks to photoelectric photometry, 44% of the known variables among the naked eye stars are variable by less than 0.1 magnitude and only 22% by over 0.5 magnitude. Thus the most common types known in 1911 now constitude an elite minority.