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The following are useful books regarding eclipsing binary stars:
- John Percy's book "Understanding Variable Stars" (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007) is a good, recent book for all variable star observers, and includes a section on eclipsing binaries.
- Another good book on general variable star astronomy is "Variable Stars" by Hoffmeister, Richter, and Wenzel; translated from German to English by Dunlop. Springer, 1985; presently available in soft cover. Its chapter on eclipsing systems includes light curves, and discussions of some notable systems. It is 30 years old now, but still a good book because of the many excellent figures and tables.
- "Introduction to Astronomical Photometry" by Budding and Demircan (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007) could have been titled "Astronomical Photometry as Applied to Eclipsing Binary and Other Variable Stars", as it includes a great deal of information about how to understand the stars from photometric data. It includes a section about period changes in binary systems, and how to study this using the O-C diagram. Table 8.1 is a list of stars with a known light-time effect ("LTE", i.e. a binary co-orbiting a 3rd star), and Table 8.2 is a list of suspected LTE triple systems. The former list, especially, is remarkably short!
- "An Introduction to Close Binary Systems" by Hilditch (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001). A university-level text suitable for physics and astronomy students.
- "The Light-Time Effect in Astrophysics - Causes and Cures of the O-C Diagram". An ASP Conference Series Volume (number 335). Papers from an entire conference about the O-C diagram and stars that exhibit interesting behavior on said diagram. This book was reviewed by John Percy in eJAAVSO (page 271 ff).
- "Binary Stars : a pictorial atlas" by Terrell, Mukherjee, and Wilson (Krieger, 1992). For >300 EBs, the authors present a page listing the parameters of that binary system, modeled lightcurves in the ultraviolet, visible, and infrared, and 3D representations of the system at 10 different phase points. The book is those pages of examples -- there is little other material.