A revised historical light curve of Eta Carinae and the timing of close periastron encounters

@article{Smith2010ARH,
  title={A revised historical light curve of Eta Carinae and the timing of close periastron encounters},
  author={Nathan Smith and David J. Frew},
  journal={Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  year={2010},
  volume={415},
  pages={2009-2019}
}
  • N. Smith, D. Frew
  • Published 2010
  • Physics
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
The historical light curve of the 19th century ‘Great Eruption’ of"Carinae provides a striking record of the violent instabilities encountered by massive stars. In this paper, we report and analyse newly uncovered historical estimates of the visual brightness of"Car during its eruption,andwecorrectsomemistakesintheoriginalrecord.Therevisedhistoricallightcurve looks substantially different from previous accounts; it shows two brief precursor eruptions in 1838 and 1843 that resemble modern… Expand
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