Uncommon variable star 33 EP

HIP 73152

RA 224.2529° · Dec -68.8397° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges

33 pts · Uncommon

Uncommon 34 pts → Rare

Supergiant +18
Variable star +5
Gently variable +4
Yellow-white F-type star +3
A named variable star +3

Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

Variable star · +5
Yellow-white F-type star · +3
Supergiant · +18
Gently variable · +4
A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 2.9 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F2Ib — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.
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.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Triangulum Australe.
Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow (B−V 0.7) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.

Properties

absmag: -11.31
bv: 0.745
constellation: TrA
luminosity: 2910717.1181
mag: 8.69
name: HIP 73152
spect: F2Ib
var amplitude: 0.43
var designation: EN
var max: 8.475
var min: 8.905

Nearby objects

About HIP 73152

HIP 73152 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation TrA, shines at apparent magnitude 8.69 and has spectral type F2Ib.

Its spectrum reads F2Ib — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 73152 in the constellation TrA. At apparent magnitude 8.69, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 73152 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 HIP 73152 is an uncommon variable star

HIP 73152 scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Yellow-white F-type star, Supergiant, Gently variable 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.