The GALEX View of "Boyajian's Star" (KIC 8462852)

The enigmatic star KIC 8462852, informally known as "Boyajian's Star", has exhibited unexplained variability from both short timescale (days) dimming events, and years-long fading in the Kepler mission. No single physical mechanism has successfully explained these observations to date. Here we investigate the ultraviolet variability of KIC 8462852 on a range of timescales using data from the GALEX mission that occurred contemporaneously with the Kepler mission. The wide wavelength baseline between the Kepler and GALEX data provides a unique constraint on the nature of the variability. Using 1600 seconds of photon-counting data from four GALEX visits spread over 70 days in 2011, we find no coherent NUV variability in the system on 10-100 second or months timescales. Comparing the integrated flux from these 2011 visits to the 2012 NUV flux published in the GALEX-CAUSE Kepler survey, we find a 3% decrease in brightness for KIC 8462852. We find this level of variability is significant, but not necessarily unusual for stars of similar spectral type in the GALEX data. This decrease coincides with the secular optical fading reported by Montet & Simon (2016). We find the multi-wavelength variability is somewhat inconsistent with typical interstellar dust absorption, but instead favors a R$_V$ = 5.0 $\pm$ 0.9 reddening law potentially from circumstellar dust.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, ApJ Accepte

Revisiting the V Band Variance and Rotational Period of EK Dra

Although there are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on the all the beaches of the world, astronomers continue to gather information on many of the same stars. Due to the variation of stellar objects in long and short timescales it is necessary to revisit these stars to not only confirm but also to disprove earlier predictions and models. With additional data it is possible to create new and novel techniques to analyze their behavior. We have pieced together data from 4 different data sets to create a more complete picture of the variability in light of the microwave wavelength (V band) coming from EK Dra over a timescale spanning over 30 years. Four data sets were used to encompass a range from 1985 to 2015, with the longest data set spanning just over 15 years. From this data we look to better quantify and confirm a unique two period variation of the V band and rotational period of EK Dra as described by Messina and Guinan 2004 et al [1]. Such analysis from many years and catalogs of data opens the door for more complete and accessible data for future use in other research projects