This week we look at the young star V350Cep. This is an old friend of this feature and you can read through the multitude of posts about it by searching the website for the name.
In the plot above we show the V, R, and I-band data over the last 3yr. The V-band is slightly shifted for more clarity. The source used to be ‘stable’ i.e. not changing much, other than the odd dimming event. It is actually in a state of increased brightness for several decades now after a 4-5mag outburst event in the past.
The start the data shows one of these occasional dimming events which last for a few weeks. However, after that the source underwent a sequence of longer dimming events. for the last half a year or so the source seems to have returned to its ‘stable’ behaviour after almost 2yr of being dimmer than usual.
What next? We will find out. We always hope to find one of these long-term outbursting sources to return to their pre-outburst brightness, but so far that has not happend. While this would be a first, it would probably also mean we can’t detect the star any longer….