The Central Stars of He 2–131 and He 2–138: Photometric Variations

Extract

The central stars of the planetary nebulae He 2–131 and He 2–138 show variations in their visual magnitudes, with amplitudes of about 0.1 mag. and time scales of a few hours. This behavior appears to be very similar to that exhibited by the central stars of IC 418 and IC 4593. These four central stars have several other characteristics in common: a relatively low effective temperature, between 27000 and 40000 K; clear spectroscopic evidences of mass loss, both in the ultraviolet (IUE) and visible spectral regions; and short-term spectroscopic variability, in the form of radial velocity variations and/or of substantial changes in emission and P-Cygni-type line profiles. None of these central stars has shown convincing evidence of binarity; we attribute their behavior to variations in the stellar winds.