← Back to dex
Uncommon variable star 27 EP

HD 132839

RA 225.6448° · Dec -41.5737° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
27 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 27

7 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F3III/IV — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Centaurus.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
0.803
bv
0.423
constellation
Cen
dist ly
1016.0624
luminosity
41.5719
mag
8.27
name
HD 132839
spect
F3III/IV
var amplitude
0.07
var designation
V1022
var max
8.235
var min
8.305

About HD 132839

HD 132839 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,016.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 8.27 and has spectral type F3III/IV.

Its spectrum reads F3III/IV — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 132839 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 8.27, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 132839 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 HD 132839 is an uncommon variable star

HD 132839 scores 27 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Yellow-white F-type star, Giant star, 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.