Spectral classification in the context of Diffraction grating

A blue supergiant (BSG) is a hot, luminous star, often referred to as an OB supergiant. They are usually considered to be those with luminosity class I and spectral class B9 or earlier, although sometimes A-class supergiants are also deemed blue supergiants.

Blue supergiants are found towards the top left of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, above and to the right of the main sequence. By analogy to the red giant branch for low-mass stars, this region is also called the blue giant branch. They are larger than the Sun but smaller than a red supergiant, with surface temperatures of 10,000–50,000 K and luminosities from about 10,000 to a million times that of the Sun. They are most often an evolutionary phase between high-mass, hydrogen-fusing main-sequence stars and helium-fusing red supergiants, although new research suggests they could be the result of stellar mergers.

A giant star has a substantially larger radius and luminosity than a main-sequence (or dwarf) star of the same surface temperature. They lie above the main sequence (luminosity class V in the Yerkes spectral classification) on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram and correspond to luminosity classes II and III. The terms giant and dwarf were coined for stars of quite different luminosity despite similar temperature or spectral type (namely K and M) by Ejnar Hertzsprung in 1905 or 1906.

Giant stars have radii up to a few hundred times the Sun and luminosities over 10 times that of the Sun. Stars still more luminous than giants are referred to as supergiants and hypergiants.

Gamma Doradus variables are variable stars which display variations in luminosity due to non-radial pulsations of their surface. The stars are typically young, early F or late A type main sequence stars, and typical brightness fluctuations are 0.1 magnitudes with periods on the order of one day. This class of variable stars is relatively new, having been first characterized in the second half of the 1990s, and details on the underlying physical cause of the variations remains under investigation.

The star 9 Aurigae was first noticed to be variable in 1990. However, none of the currently-accepted explanations were adequate: it pulsated too slowly and was outside of the Delta Scuti instability strip, and there was no evidence for any eclipsing material, although Gamma Doradus and HD 96008 were noted to be similar. These three stars, as well as HD 224638, were soon hypothesized to belong to a new class of variable stars in which variability was produced by g-mode pulsations rather than the p-mode pulsations of Delta Scuti variables. HD 224945 and HD 164615 were noticed to be similar as well, while HD 96008 was ruled out on the basis of its more regular period. Eclipses and starspots were soon ruled out as the cause of the Gamma Doradus' variability, and the variability of 9 Aurigae was confirmed to be caused by g-mode pulsations a year later, thus confirming the stars as the prototypes of a new class of variable stars. Over ten more candidates were quickly found, and the discoverers dubbed the group the Gamma Doradus stars, after the brightest member and the first member found to be variable.

RR Lyrae variables are periodic variable stars, commonly found in globular clusters. They are used as standard candles to measure (extra) galactic distances, assisting with the cosmic distance ladder. This class is named after the prototype and brightest example, RR Lyrae.

They are pulsating horizontal branch stars of spectral class A or F, with a mass of around half the Sun's. They are thought to have shed mass during the red-giant branch phase, and were once stars at around 0.8 solar masses.

W Virginis variables are a subclass of Type II Cepheids which exhibit pulsation periods between 10–20 days, and are of spectral class F6 – K2.

They were first recognized as being distinct from classical Cepheids by Walter Baade in 1942, in a study of Cepheids in the Andromeda Galaxy that proposed that stars in that galaxy were of two populations. The prototype is W Virginis.

Tau Serpentis, Latinized from τ Serpentis, is a variable M-type giant star in the constellation of Serpens, approximately 710 light-years from the Earth. Its brightness varies from magnitude 5.89 to 7.07, making it occasionally bright enough to be faintly visible to the naked eye under very good observing conditions.

With a spectral classification M5IIIa, Tau Serpentis is a cool red giant star. The spectrum varies, and some sources classify it between M4IIIe and M6IIIe. Some of its spectral lines show an inverse P Cygni profile, where cold infalling gas on to the star creates redshifted hydrogen absorption lines next to the normal emission lines. Sometime between the years 1868 and 1877, John Ellard Gore discovered that the star's brightness varies. It is classified as a semiregular late-type variable, and its magnitude varies between +5.89 and +7.07 with a period of approximately 100 days.

A K-type main-sequence star is a main-sequence (core hydrogen-burning) star of spectral type K. The luminosity class is typically V. These stars are intermediate in size between red dwarfs and yellow dwarfs, hence the term orange dwarfs often applied to this type.