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Common variable star 21 EP

HD 235739

RA 332.2621° · Dec 51.0459° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Variable star +5
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

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

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 1.9 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 F7 — 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 9.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Lacerta.
  • 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 yellow (B−V 0.7) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-10.88
bv
0.71
constellation
Lac
luminosity
1958844.6735
mag
9.12
name
HD 235739
spect
F7
var amplitude
0.71
var designation
Y
var max
8.839
var min
9.549

About HD 235739

HD 235739 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Lac, shines at apparent magnitude 9.12 and has spectral type F7.

Its spectrum reads F7 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 235739 in the constellation Lac. At apparent magnitude 9.12, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 235739 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 235739 is a common variable star

HD 235739 scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, Yellow-white F-type star, 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.