Non-Periodic Phenomena in Variable Stars
                                                IAU Colloquium, Budapest, 1968


                        NEARLY CONTACT BINARY HD 17514

                     V. I. BURNASHOV and E. A. VITRICHENKO
                    Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, USSR


  This system was discovered in 1967 at the Crimean Observatory. Light and 
radial velocity curves were obtained. The star is an eclipsing binary 
with elliptical components. The masses of the components are 48 and 13.5 
M_Sun, the stars almost fill the Roche's surface. In spite of the 
extremely large mass of the primary (O8V) and the extremely small 
distance between the components (cf. Fig. 1), no irregularity has been 
detected in the light curve (1777 photoelectric measurements made in 
1967-1968 with a mean standard error of the order of 0.005m) and in the 
spectra (29 spectrograms with a dispersion of 37 A/mm). H_alpha is in 
absorption, without any evidence of emission. It is possible that we are 
dealing with a very young system in which mass exchange has not yet begun.




Fig. 1. Cross-section of the system HD 17514 in the equatorial plane. Roche's 
        surface is shown.