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Uncommon variable star 29 EP

15 Vul

RA 300.2752° · Dec 27.7536° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A4III — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 4.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Vulpecula.
  • 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.

Properties

absmag
0.359
bv
0.184
constellation
Vul
dist ly
236.345
luminosity
62.5749
mag
4.66
name
15 Vul
spect
A4III
var amplitude
0.01
var designation
NT
var max
4.656
var min
4.666

About 15 Vul

15 Vul is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 236.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vul, shines at apparent magnitude 4.66 and has spectral type A4III.

Its spectrum reads A4III — 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 15 Vul in the constellation Vul. At apparent magnitude 4.66, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 15 Vul 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 15 Vul is an uncommon variable star

15 Vul scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, White A-type star, Giant 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.