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Common variable star 15 EP

HIP 79085

RA 242.1493° · Dec -20.8074° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • On the zodiac +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 220.8 thousand times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • 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 11.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Scorpius.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.1) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4430 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HIP number comes from Hipparcos, the ESA satellite that between 1989 and 1993 pinned down 118,000 stars precisely enough to triangulate their distances.

Properties

absmag
-8.53
bv
1.14
constellation
Sco
luminosity
224905.4606
mag
11.47
name
HIP 79085
var amplitude
0.36
var designation
V1047
var max
11.284
var min
11.644

About HIP 79085

HIP 79085 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Sco and shines at apparent magnitude 11.47.

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.

How to see it

Look for HIP 79085 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 11.47, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 79085 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 79085 is a common variable star

HIP 79085 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, On the zodiac, 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.