Mira Variables and OH Masers

The objective for this project will be to detect OH masers around old Mira stars, which in the Northern Hemisphere can be found around: U Her, S CrB, W Hya, and R Cas. For radio measurements, we’ll have to use dark skies as a control measure of cold sky between 2 and 3 degrees off from these Miras. This will be a program for collecting data over 2 years. Mira stars are old variable red giants with an average period of 331 days. However, their magnitudes may vary from a visual minimum magnitude to greater than 4 or 5 magnitude increase (very bright). The hope is that we can detect their OH masers at 1.665GHz and 1.667GHz with circular polarization during the entire cycle of variability.

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