Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
It has been recognized in recent years that extremely rapid light-variations occur in certain stars. Flares lasting only a few minutes have been observed in a number of dMe stars[1]. Flaring has also been observed in the W Ursae Majoris star U Pegasi[2]. Rapid variations in light have been found in some T Tauri stars[3], in the U Geminorum variable AE Aquarii[4,5], and in the short-period eclipsing binary UX Ursae Majoris[6, 7, 8]. Observations during the past two years at the Mount Wilson Observatory have shown that extremely rapid and apparently continuous variations in light occur also in many of the old novae and in a number of related stars.