← Back to dex
Common variable star 19 EP

HR 5492

RA 220.5133° · Dec 61.2619° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F2V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.
  • It changes. This star does not hold still: its brightness rises and falls on a rhythm of hours, days or years, either pulsing in size or being eclipsed by a companion.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 6.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Draco.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
3.194
bv
0.409
constellation
Dra
dist ly
132.6375
luminosity
4.5962
mag
6.24
name
HR 5492
spect
F2V
var amplitude
0.02
var designation
DL
var max
6.229
var min
6.249

About HR 5492

HR 5492 is a common variable star. It lies about 132.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 6.24 and has spectral type F2V.

Its spectrum reads F2V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HR 5492 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 6.24, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 5492 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why HR 5492 is a common variable star

HR 5492 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-type star, Main-sequence star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) and A named variable star — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.