SIMBAD references

An unusual Eddington-limited thermonuclear X-ray burst was detected from the accreting neutron star in 2S 0918-549 with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. The burst commenced with a brief (40ms) precursor and maintained near-Eddington fluxes during the initial 77s. These characteristics are indicative of a nova-like expulsion of a shell from the neutron star surface. Starting 122s into the burst, the burst shows strong (87±1% peak-to-peak amplitude) achromatic fluctuations for 60s. We speculate that the fluctuations are caused by Thompson scattering by fully-ionized inhomogeneities in a resettling accretion disk that was disrupted by the effects of super-Eddington fluxes. An expanding shell may be the necessary prerequisite for the fluctuations.