This week we have a look at the young star GQ Mon, in the NGC2264 cluster. It is situated (in projection) about half way between the cluster centre and the Cone Nebula to the South.
We show the V, R, and I-band light curve of the star for the last observing season (2024-2025). Note that the R and V magnitudes are shifted as indicated in the legend for more clarity.
We can see that the star is more or less constantly varying, by up to 2 mag in the visual filter. It seems to have a ‘ceiling’ brightness from which it drops down by various amounts at varying timescales. Occasionally there are brightening events, such as the on at JD=2460740d.
This field is one of our winter targets, so you can get out there and observe it yourself to help build up the light curve for this winter … 😉