RV Corvi is an eclipsing

binary star A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in wh ...

system in the southern

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

of Corvus. The brightness of the pair regularly ranges in apparent visual magnitude from 8.6 down to 9.16 over a period 18 hours, even the brightest of which is too faint to be visible to the naked eye. The system is located at a distance of approximately 690

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s from the Sun based on

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

measurements, and is drifting further away with a

radial velocity The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is e ...

of ~19 km/s. The variability of this system was discovered by H. H. Swope. In 1942, Irene G. Buttery published an orbital period of 0.74728 days for the system, showing this is an eclipsing binary. It is a near- contact binary with both stars showing the effect of tidal interactions and the facing sides are less than 10% of the orbital separation apart, but are not in contact. One or both stars may show an excess of luminosity on their facing sides. The system is composed of stars of spectral types F0 and G0, which orbit each other every 0.7473 days.

References

{{Stars of Corvus Beta Lyrae variables Corvus (constellation) 109796 061620 Corvi, RV F-type main-sequence stars