← Back to dex
Uncommon variable star 32 EP

43Phi Dra

RA 275.1893° · Dec 71.3378° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 7 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0p (Si) — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • 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 4.2 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Draco.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around June — 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. ≈ 5.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.619
bv
-0.093
constellation
Dra
dist ly
302.8375
luminosity
154.0281
mag
4.22
name
43Phi Dra
spect
A0p (Si)
var amplitude
0.03
var designation
Phi
var max
4.2
var min
4.23

About 43Phi Dra

43Phi Dra is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 302.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 4.22 and has spectral type A0p (Si).

Its spectrum reads A0p (Si) — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for 43Phi Dra in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 4.22, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 43Phi Dra 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 43Phi Dra is an uncommon variable star

43Phi Dra scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star, Blue-white star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.