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Common variable star 21 EP

10 Aql

RA 284.6955° · Dec 13.9066° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Variable star +5
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F0spe... — 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.

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 5.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Aquila.
  • 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 July — 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. ≈ 4.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.439
bv
0.251
constellation
Aql
dist ly
255.6081
luminosity
23.142
mag
5.91
name
10 Aql
spect
F0spe...
var amplitude
0.02
var designation
V1286
var max
5.899
var min
5.919

About 10 Aql

10 Aql is a common variable star. It lies about 255.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aql, shines at apparent magnitude 5.91 and has spectral type F0spe....

Its spectrum reads F0spe... — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for 10 Aql in the constellation Aql. At apparent magnitude 5.91, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 10 Aql 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 10 Aql is a common variable star

10 Aql scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Yellow-white F-type 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.