About HD 330338
HD 330338 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Nor, shines at apparent magnitude 10.1 and has spectral type F5.
Its spectrum reads F5 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Common variable star 15 EP
HD 330338
RA 241.3288° · Dec -49.5023° · star
Score breakdown
· 4 badgesCommon 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
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 779.8 thousand 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 F5 — 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.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 10.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Norma.
- 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.
What's in a name
- Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.
How we came to know it
- Cosmic yardstick. Variable stars are how we measured the universe. In 1912 Henrietta Leavitt showed that a pulsating star's rhythm reveals its true brightness — turning these stars into distance markers.
Properties
- absmag
- -9.9
- constellation
- Nor
- luminosity
- 794328.2347
- mag
- 10.1
- name
- HD 330338
- spect
- F5
- var amplitude
- 0.28
- var designation
- V384
- var max
- 10.038
- var min
- 10.318
How to see it
Look for HD 330338 in the constellation Nor. At apparent magnitude 10.1, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HD 330338 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 330338 is a common variable star
HD 330338 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.