If observing time and number of photons are not the limit, it will probably be very difficult to find any Be star or BA supergiant that is not variable. Moreover, there is hardly any major set of observations that is not tempting to explain at least partly in terms of nonradial (g-mode) pulsations. Since a few years ago, such conjectures are also theoretically permissible because improved opacity calculations have established the classical к-mechanism as a viable source of pulsation driving (cf. Pamyatnykh, these proceedings).Contrary to Be stars, it can for any given BA supergiant nevertheless be arbitrarily difficult to diagnose nonradial pulsations (NRP’s) with certainty because they need to be detected against considerable background ‘noise’ of other physical processes, most of which are related to mass loss and/or rotation. To make things worse, there is some evidence that NRP’s can have some effect on the dynamics of the mass loss. On the other hand, variable and non-spherical winds is the subject of this Colloquium, and this paper is accordingly biased towards the interplay between pulsation and mass loss.
Apsidal motion and non-radial pulsations inψ2Ori