BY Dra Variable

Interesting things
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You may have noticed I have been looking for K class stars & posting them and I saw this star nearby some K1 stars and it’s star type was new to me; BY*; a BY Dra Variable. It is type of main sequence star that has a lot of chromospheric activity large sunspots and fluctuations in its bends of lights I believe that means it changes color potentially? either way cool type and I’m surprised I had not knowingly come across one. While several spectral classes can produce BY Dra Variables at >50% of several thousand sampled are K class. curiously to me K class stars are supposed to be exceptionally stable over billions of years, so it seems like K class stars have two wildly different forms. It would be interesting to see these types get more focus. still not sure what BY stands for? in Ursa Major; HD 116956

201.4389, 56.9704; BA

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I think “BY” doesn’t stand for anything, it’s just the name of the first identified star of that type ( BY Draconis - Wikipedia ) and I think the naming scheme is from this variable star naming scheme: Variable-star designation - Wikipedia

… which by the way is an absolutely wild scheme!

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Category:BY Draconis variables - Wikipedia :wink:

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The variable naming scheme is kinda wild. seems like it might be overwhelmed by discoveries eventually.

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Thank you for this list. I read there are tens of thousands of them known and I think We have outpaced our own naming system and surely Wikipedia will never have them all. Hopefully some of that variability is a sign of life. The clues of lifes presence will be minutia.