Variations of O-B stars in Mercator observations

We analysed both the Hipparcos data and our new seven passband Geneva data collected for these stars during the first three years of scientific operations of the Mercator telescope. We performed a frequency analysis for 28 targets with more than 50 high-quality Mercator observations to improve their variability classification.

We searched for frequencies by using two independent frequency analysis methods and we applied a 3.6 S/N-level criterion to locate the significant peaks in the periodograms. In total we detected 60 frequencies, among which 32 new ones. We classified 21 objects as pulsating variables (7 new confirmed pulsating stars, including 2 hybrid beta Cep/SPB stars), 6 as non-pulsating variables (binaries or spotted stars), and 1 as photometrically constant stars.