This week we have a look at the star V1706Cyg in the pelican nebula. While projected onto the star forming region, the Gaia parallax places it at a distance of about 2820pc, i.e. this is clearly a background star.
The spectral energy distribution of the object shows only a tiny hint of infrared excess, so most likely it is not a young star, but a more detailed analysis is needed to clarify this.
What we do know, is that the star is actually a very close, eclipsing binary system. The period is estimated to be 1day, 4hrs, 14min, 25sec. We show the folded light curve of the system in the V-band in the above figure. Both, the primary and secondary eclipse have almost the same depth. Thus, most likely this is an almost equal mass binary system. The rounded of maxima also clearly show that the stars are close enough together for them to be not spherical any longer.
The image of the folded light curve has been made with a new online tool we are preparing for anyone to use with our HOYS data. It allows you to upload a light curve of your choice from our database and try to find periods in the data. Watch this space!