← Back to dex
Common variable star 15 EP

HD 209943

RA 329.5846° · Dec 82.8711° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F5 — 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.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 7.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cepheus.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around August — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 1.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
5.077
bv
0.698
constellation
Cep
dist ly
97.2728
luminosity
0.8113
mag
7.45
name
HD 209943
spect
F5
var designation
V376

About HD 209943

HD 209943 is a common variable star. It lies about 97.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 7.45 and has spectral type F5.

Its spectrum reads F5 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 209943 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 7.45, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 209943 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 209943 is a common variable star

HD 209943 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-type star 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.