This week we look at a young star in the NGC2264 star forming region – the Christmas Tree Cluster. This field has now set for observations, but will return in the autumn. We look at the know TTaui variable IP Mon, which sits in between the main NGC2264 cluster and the Cone Nebula.
In the plot we show our V, R, and I data of the object from the last observing season. The light curve has many nice, smooth, well behaved parts where the variations from day to day are small. But we also see many dimming events of different depth and duration. Some of these can be up to one magnitude deep, while the star typically stays within a few tenths of it average brightness.
The long term light curve over the last seven years, available on the website, shows that the star has behaved in the same way throughout. Our slightly worse cadence at the start of the project, however, prevents us from following the dips in detail and the light curve looks a bit more random. It is hence important to keep looking at this and all fields daily if we want to characterise the dimming events and thus disk structures in detail.