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Common variable star 15 EP

HD 140629

RA 235.9914° · Dec 22.3397° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F8 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived 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.

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 8.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Serpens.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 7.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.544
bv
0.671
constellation
Ser
dist ly
421.3903
luminosity
8.3637
mag
8.1
name
HD 140629
spect
F8
var amplitude
0.18
var designation
PS
var max
8.067
var min
8.247

About HD 140629

HD 140629 is a common variable star. It lies about 421.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ser, shines at apparent magnitude 8.1 and has spectral type F8.

Its spectrum reads F8 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 140629 in the constellation Ser. At apparent magnitude 8.1, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 140629 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 140629 is a common variable star

HD 140629 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, Yellow-white F-type 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.