Spectral Variations of AG Dra Between 1981 and 1985

Extract

After a long quiet phase AG Dra underwent an outstandingly active phase with two outbursts in 1980 Nov. and 1981 Nov.(Viotti et al, 1984). Since then a new quiet phase has followed. In this work we analyse two spectra of AG Dra, of which, one was taken in 1981 by C.C. Huang at the Haute-Provence Observatory using the Marly spectrograph with a dispersion of 80 A/mm at the 1.2 m telescope, the other was obtained by Dr Y.Andrillat in 1985 with the same instrument.

Figure 1 shows the spectral variations of AG Dra between 1981 and 1985. The main features of the emission line spectrum are not much different between the two spectra, except that in 1985 there was a new wide weak emission line at 3488 A possibly due to FeII. There were a lot of strong emission lines due to H, HeI, HeII and 0III in both spectra. The spectrum of the late-type component was much more obvious in 1985 than in 1981. In 1985 the lines of CaII K, CaIλ4227 and the G-band of CH were quite strong. In addition we measured a lot of absorption lines due to FeI, SrII and TiII on the 1985 plate. The Balmer continuum emission and the blue contiuum were enhanced in 1981. On the 1981 plate the stellar spectrum in ultraviolet can be traced beyond 3200 A and the blue continuum heavily veiled the spectrum of the cool component. In 1985 they were much weaker.