ASTRONOMY
January 13 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
A change to the published programme. Dr Adam Masters The Open University having recently passed his PhD.
In 1850, astronomer John Russell Hind was keeping a close eye on the star HD 38451. He originally observed it two years earlier, noting its strong red appearance. Hind was interested in variable stars and had noticed that many red stars showed interesting variations, so he suspected that HD 38451 might be variable too. what he saw, though, took him completely by surprise: HD 38451 had completely changed colour and now appeared as a brilliant blue-white, which it remains tot his day. At the time this change lacked any explanation, and even to this day there are unanswered questions about the behaviour of this star. Join me as I tell the story of what we now think happened in 1850, what modern observations tell us, and what we still don’t understand about HD 38451.
