About HD 198343
HD 198343 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 6.68 and has spectral type F8.
Its spectrum reads F8 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Common variable star 19 EP
HD 198343
RA 311.7544° · Dec 58.4168° · star
Score breakdown
· 5 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Variable star +5
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
- Gently variable +4
- Yellow-white F-type star +3
- A named variable star +3
Total score 19
3 more points to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Variable star · +5
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- Yellow-white F-type star · +3
- Gently variable · +4
- A named variable star · +3
Trivia
What it actually is
- Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F8 — 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.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 6.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cepheus.
- 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 August — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.3) — 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 4190 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
What's in a name
- Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.
Properties
- absmag
- -13.32
- bv
- 1.26
- constellation
- Cep
- luminosity
- 18535316.2341
- mag
- 6.68
- name
- HD 198343
- spect
- F8
- var amplitude
- 0.15
- var designation
- V416
- var max
- 6.596
- var min
- 6.746
How to see it
Look for HD 198343 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 6.68, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, HD 198343 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 198343 is a common variable star
HD 198343 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-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.