HAT Discovery of 76 Bright Periodic Variables Toward the Galactic Bulge

TL;DR

This study reports the discovery of 76 bright periodic variables, including 52 eclipsing binaries, in the Galactic bulge using photometric I-band observations with the HATnet telescope, expanding knowledge of stellar variability in this region.

Contribution

The paper presents 76 new periodic variables, including 52 eclipsing binaries, identified through dedicated photometric observations of the Galactic bulge, with a focus on bright stars.

Findings

76 new periodic variables discovered

52 of these are eclipsing binaries

Data collected over 88 nights in 2005

Abstract

We report on photometric I-band observations of 147 bright (8<I<13) periodic variables toward the Galactic bulge including 76 new discoveries. We used one of the HATnet telescopes to obtain 151 exposures spanning 88 nights in 2005 of an 8.4 x 8.4 deg^2 field of view (FOV) approximately centered on (l,b) = (1.73, -4.68). We observed the galactic bulge in 2005 as part of a microlensing feasibility study (Nataf et al. 2009), and here we discuss the periodic variables we found in our data. Among our discoveries we count 52 new eclipsing binaries and 24 other periodic variables.