HD 38451 : J.R. Hind's star that changed colour.

Abstract

In 1851, John Russell Hind announced that a star previously observed by him to be very red had become bluish white in color. It is shown that this star, HD 38451, is a ninth magnitude shell star which presumably was ejecting a shell when Hind first observed it. From high dispersion coude spectra, low dispersion IUE spectra, and ground-based photometry, HD 38451 is found to be a normal A21V shell star. Its current values of E(B-V) of about 0.14 is probably caused by interstellar rather than circumstellar reddening. There remains a problem to reconcile the large amount of reddening present when Hind first observed the star with its evidently small diminution in visual brightness at that time.