Talk:Eta Carinae
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"One remarkable aspect of Eta Carinae is its changing brightness. When it was first catalogued in 1677 by Edmond Halley, it was of the 4th magnitude, but later it brightened, reaching its greatest brightness in April 1843"
I don't know how to word it, but could the 2nd sentence be changed without getting too detailed, to indicate its varying brightness so readers don't think it only brightened from 1677 to 1843. Also, is it too fine a point to say "greatest *recorded* brightness in April 1843"?
- "Sols" isn't a commonly used term among astronomers. We would be more likely to say "4 million times brighter than the Sun" or "4 million solar luminosities" or "4 million L(with a little sun symbol subscript)". Just a little nitpick. Also Eta Car is classified as a luminous blue variable, but there isn't an article for that yet. Maybe I should start it. :) - Etacar11 15:12, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Binary star?
The article currently says:
- Recent observations seem to indicate that eta Carinae is actually a binary star, the two stars orbiting each other with a period of around 5.5 years.
Says who? Do we have a reference? Let's find out who made these observations and change this to active voice. --P3d0 16:24, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
- It's an open issue but I think most astronomers who study Eta Car are leaning towards binary. Here's some references from ADS:
- [1] (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2005ASPC..332..166S&db_key=AST&high=429de6cf6f18534), [2] (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2005MNRAS.357..895F&db_key=AST&high=429de6cf6f18534), [3] (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2004MNRAS.352..447W&db_key=AST&high=429de6cf6f18534)
- --Etacar11 16:57, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)