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Uncommon variable star 23 EP

HD 193986

RA 305.5425° · Dec 31.2532° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0 — 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 8.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cygnus.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 43.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.784
bv
0.083
constellation
Cyg
dist ly
2489.7405
luminosity
179.3081
mag
8.63
name
HD 193986
spect
A0
var amplitude
0.12
var designation
V2314
var max
8.607
var min
8.727

About HD 193986

HD 193986 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 2,489.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cyg, shines at apparent magnitude 8.63 and has spectral type A0.

Its spectrum reads A0 — 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 HD 193986 in the constellation Cyg. At apparent magnitude 8.63, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 193986 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 193986 is an uncommon variable star

HD 193986 scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type 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.