Uncommon variable star 33 EP

HIP 105026

RA 319.0946° · Dec -30.2842° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges

33 pts · Uncommon

Uncommon 34 pts → Rare

Bright giant +12
Strongly variable +10
Variable star +5
Yellow-white F-type star +3
A named variable star +3

Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

Variable star · +5
Yellow-white F-type star · +3
Bright giant · +12
Strongly variable · +10
A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 175.4 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 F5IIvar — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.
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 11.7 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Microscopium.
Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around August — that's when to go looking.

What's in a name

Its catalogue. The HIP number comes from Hipparcos, the ESA satellite that between 1989 and 1993 pinned down 118,000 stars precisely enough to triangulate their distances.

Properties

absmag: -8.28
constellation: Mic
luminosity: 178648.7575
mag: 11.72
name: HIP 105026
spect: F5IIvar
var amplitude: 0.69
var designation: Z
var max: 11.261
var min: 11.951

Nearby objects

About HIP 105026

HIP 105026 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation Mic, shines at apparent magnitude 11.72 and has spectral type F5IIvar.

Its spectrum reads F5IIvar — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 105026 in the constellation Mic. At apparent magnitude 11.72, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 105026 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 105026 is an uncommon variable star

HIP 105026 scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Yellow-white F-type star, Bright giant, Strongly 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.