Photospheric stellar activity cycles

Cycle lengths of active stars are derived from long-term photometric monitoring of their secular light variability. With the help of photographic data archives the lengths of the datasets are extended for HK Lac and V833 Tau. Using time-frequency analysis it is shown that the cycles are continuously changing in time. Thus, the reported cycle lengths derived by simple Fourier analysis are mean values that are valid only for a given time interval.