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Uncommon variable star 29 EP

HD 191531

RA 302.4150° · Dec 21.0788° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 3.9 million 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 B0.5III-IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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 blue-white (B−V -0.1) — the hallmark of a surface far hotter than the Sun's.

Properties

absmag
-11.65
bv
-0.066
constellation
Sge
luminosity
3981071.7055
mag
8.35
name
HD 191531
spect
B0.5III-IV
var amplitude
0.09
var designation
V372
var max
8.311
var min
8.401

About HD 191531

HD 191531 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation Sge, shines at apparent magnitude 8.35 and has spectral type B0.5III-IV.

Its spectrum reads B0.5III-IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 191531 in the constellation Sge. At apparent magnitude 8.35, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 191531 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 HD 191531 is an uncommon variable star

HD 191531 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, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star, Blue-white 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.