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Rare variable star 46 EP

HIP 94289

RA 287.8786° · Dec 16.8606° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
46 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) +34
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 46

4 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) · +34
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 293.8 thousand 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 WN... — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.
  • 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 11.2 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Sagitta.
  • 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.

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.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4650 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-8.84
bv
1.04
constellation
Sge
luminosity
299226.4637
mag
11.16
name
HIP 94289
spect
WN...
var amplitude
0.17
var designation
QR
var max
11.075
var min
11.245

About HIP 94289

HIP 94289 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Sge, shines at apparent magnitude 11.16 and has spectral type WN....

Its spectrum reads WN... — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.

How to see it

Look for HIP 94289 in the constellation Sge. At apparent magnitude 11.16, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 94289 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 94289 is a rare variable star

HIP 94289 scores 46 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself), 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.