Monitoring Tabby's star

Tabby's Star (also known as Boyajian's Star and WTF Star, and designated KIC 8462852) is an F-type main-sequence star located in the constellation Cygnus. In 2016 the discovery of a star showing frequent but non-periodic dips in its luminosity of 10-25% was published. The nature of these dimming events is not understood but may relate to extensive "rings" of dust and very small asteroids (and probably not alien civilisation as has also beem suggested at one point!).

There is an extensive citizen science campaign to observe this star, and over the last 3 years we have also been monitoring it with the 0.5m telescope in La Palma. The aim of this project is to take new measurements and (along with the archival observations) determine the lightcurve of Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) and search for variations in the colour of the star during as it brightens and fades.

Some useful links:

Where is the flux?

Boyajain, T.S. et al 2016 MNRAS 457, 3988

The First Image of Tabby's Star Structure

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