Abstrakt: |
Six-color ultraviolet light curves of the complex eclipsing binary system ß Lyr were obtained with the OAO-2 Wisconsin Experiment Package. The filters had a typical width at half maximum of 150 to 200 Å and centered at 1430, 1550, 1910, 2460, 2980 and 3320 Å. The most striking characteristics of the ultraviolet light curves are that the secondary minimum deepens at shorter wavelengths. This indicates that we arenot observing the eclipse effect of two stars having roughly a Planckian distribution of energy. In combination with the high resolution far ultraviolet spectra of ß Lyr recently obtained withCopernicus (OAO-3) Princeton Telescope Spectrometer, it is concluded that the far ultraviolet light curves are dominated by emission from the high temperature gas surrounding the binary system. The ultraviolet observations with OAO-2 andCopernicus are consistent with a model in which the enigmatic secondary component involves a gravitationally collapsed object, i.e., a black hole; however, alternative models are also admissible. |