Contacting Author: Hitoshi Yamaoka
Affiliation: NAOJ
Country: Japan
Co-Author(s)
Yui Sasaki, Misato Seimei, Honori Nishizawa, Yumi Madokoro (Takefu High School students),
Chiaki Itomi (Takefu High School teacher), Hitoshi Yamaoka (NAOJ, Advisor)
Title: The music which the variable stars play
During the invited lecture held in relation with the ISTS 2019 Fukui, Yamaoka introduced
the “Star chorus” project, which is a relaxation sounds made with the light curves of
variable stars. We, the students of Takefu High School, hypothesized that “a music composed
with the light curves of variable stars has a relaxing effect.” We carried out the research
for the purpose of understanding feeling of the many stars by using only our ears, and
getting people interested in stars who are not interested in the universe and their
children. The visually handicapped people can get close to astronomy, too.
We made a tune about three variable stars (omicron Ceti = Mira, R Coronae Borealis, and
CH Cygni). Each music is composed of graphs of relationship between magnitude and time, say,
light curves. We considered that the score made a six line score configuration and 1 score
was 1 octave. We played three music which we made and carried out a questionnaire with first
and second graders in Takefu High School as our participants. And we verified how the stars
glow was connected to their sounds.
When the graph becomes periodic, it was easy to create a flow in the music. When a variable
star’s light curve was similar with the other one, we found that the music with them
resembles each other.
Reference
[1]: Star Chorus https://www.starflyer.jp/campaign/2017/sc/
[2]: AAVSO web page https://www.aavso.org/
[3]: The melody of heavenly body that spectrum observation of stars make, 2016,
Yasuda Gakuen Girl’s Junior & Senior High School