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C.M. Peterson (Georgetown U. & Maria Mitchell Obs.), N.N. Samus (Inst. of Astronomy, Russian Ac. Sci., Moscow State U., & Maria Mitchell Obs. Astronomy, Russian Ac. Sci., Moscow State U., & Maria Mitchell Obs.), S. Holmes (Coll. of Charleston & Maria Mitchell Obs.), K. Singer (Duke U. & Maria Mitchell Obs.), Maria Mitchell Observatory Collaboration
The existing collections of sky photographs make it possible to recover ``lost'' variable stars --- those for which no finding charts have been published and only rough coordinates are known. We used plates of the Maria Mitchell Observatory collection to recover nine ``lost'' variable stars in Cygnus and Saggitarius (where the collection is especially rich): NY Cyg, QX Cyg, VW Sgr, GW Sgr, GZ Sgr, HK Sgr, HT Sgr, HU Sgr, and HW Sgr. For the stars recovered, we will present accurate coordinates, improved classification, and light elements. Two objects will be discussed in more detail: the Beta Lyrae eclipsing binary QX Cyg, for which we have found progressive period decrease over more than 64 years, and HW Sgr, whose variability, according to our plate study, is in complete disagreement with the earlier data. In the latter case, either the star was misclassified by the discoverer or the discoverer's position for HW Sgr is grossly in error, and we have actually found another variable. The importance of accurate positions for all variable stars previously discovered will be discussed in connection with mass discoveries of variable stars in modern automatic surveys. This project was partially supported by the NSF/REU grant AST-9820555.