With fixed stellar flux, two constant blackbody temperatures fit the 2014–2024 HD 23514 record as one area changes

We test whether the two-band color changes of HD 23514 require dust heating. We reduce 179 paired NEOWISE exposures into 20 visits from February 2014 to January 2024. We apply official bias corrections and a field calibration from ten complete comparison stars. The covariance includes paired errors, a control-record bootstrap, an independent 0.01 mag visit floor, and one common bias offset per band. We fix the stellar flux to 170 mJy in W1 and 95 mJy in W2. A chosen constant 600 K blackbody plus a fitted constant 1,087 K blackbody gives Q=5.84 for 18 nominal degrees of freedom when only the warm amplitude changes. Both components have positive flux in every visit. The warm amplitude changes by a factor of 1.86. Many chosen cool temperatures give the same optimal flux line and positive amplitudes. This is a constructive model example, not a detection of two physical dust populations. Both one-component limits also fit: area change gives Q=8.68 and temperature change gives Q=5.98, each for 19 nominal degrees of freedom. The chosen positive example survives omission of any one visit or control. It fails for the tested increases of 10 and 20 percent in both stellar fluxes. The two-band record alone does not select heating over a changing emitting area. Earlier work already established the infrared variability. We add a calibrated numerical example and preserve public data, provenance, code, full covariance, sensitivity results, figures, and offline reproduction instructions.

HD 23514 · debris disks · NEOWISE · infrared variability · blackbody model · dust temperature · calibration covariance