Uncommon variable star 33 EP

HD 144812

RA 242.4964° · Dec -48.5744° · 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 3.7 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 F2Ibe — 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 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

Properties

absmag: -11.6
bv: 1.039
constellation: Nor
luminosity: 3801893.9632
mag: 8.4
name: HD 144812
spect: F2Ibe
var amplitude: 0.1
var designation: V366
var max: 8.352
var min: 8.452

Nearby objects

About HD 144812

HD 144812 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation Nor, shines at apparent magnitude 8.4 and has spectral type F2Ibe.

Its spectrum reads F2Ibe — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 144812 in the constellation Nor. At apparent magnitude 8.4, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 144812 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 144812 is an uncommon variable star

HD 144812 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.