33. Commission de la Statistique Stellaire

Extract

In the wide field of research covered by the Commission considerable progress has been made in recent years, and it is only possible here to touch briefly on the results of a few lines of investigation, without any attempt to completeness.

Stellar luminosities. On the basis of the new list of Mount Wilson spectroscopic parallaxes and a compilation of the long series of modern trigonometric parallaxes A. van Maanen finds 617 objects within a distance of 20 parsecs from the sun. It is very doubtful, however, if we know all the stars even in the region of 5 parsecs radius. Almost all the known stars within 20 parsecs belong to the main sequence, the faintest star being of absolute magnitude +16.6. The most interesting deviations from the main sequence are the three “white dwarfs”, Сотр. of Sirius, Comp. o₂ Eridani, and van Maanen’s F type star. G. P. Kuiper lists 3 additional white dwarfs at larger distances which were estimated to be of types Bo, B7 and A2. For the first two stars, A.C. 70^°8247 and Wolf 1346, a revision of the spectral types by Adams and Humason gives A2 and A5, respectively, although the spectra differ considerably from normal ones. The A2 star in Kuiper’s list is the one discovered by Oosterhoff in the region of the cluster h, X Persei; its spectral characteristics have been examined by Öhman and by Humason. The absence of the high-numbered members of the Bahner series and of the continuous absorption at the Balmer limit seems to be an important criterion of such stars. A white dwarf of quite peculiar spectrum (type probably about B8) is the companion of o Ceti discovered spectro-graphically by Joy in 1922. There appear several additional deviations towards faint magnitudes from the main sequence which may be classed more or less safely among the white dwarfs. A few such cases have been discussed at Lund by J. Tuominen.