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Trash variable star 12 EP

HIP 120290

RA 254.4207° · Dec 35.2697° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
12 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 12

3 more points to reach Common.

Badges

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

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 871 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 10 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Hercules.
  • 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 June — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow (B−V 0.7) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 5540 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-10.02
bv
0.718
constellation
Her
luminosity
887156.012
mag
9.98
name
HIP 120290
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
V654
var max
9.936
var min
10.016

Nearby objects

About HIP 120290

HIP 120290 is a trash variable star. It sits in the constellation Her and shines at apparent magnitude 9.98.

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 120290 in the constellation Her. At apparent magnitude 9.98, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 120290 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 120290 is a trash variable star

HIP 120290 scores 12 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Variable 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.