R Centauri at Millennium's End

We have analyzed ~20,000 visual measures of the double-maximum Mira star R Centauri made by the AAVSO and The RASNZ VSS during the past 72 years,. Recently there has been a marked change in the amplitude of variability and the shape of the light curve. The period is also shortening at an increasingly fast rate. V and B-V measures indicate that the first maximum is comparable to the maximum in normal, single-peaked Mira stars.