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Uncommon variable star 33 EP

HD 213631

RA 337.8157° · Dec 63.5227° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
33 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2 + A5: — 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 8.9 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 26.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.602
bv
0.392
constellation
Cep
dist ly
1524.0934
luminosity
50.0265
mag
8.95
name
HD 213631
spect
A2 + A5:
var amplitude
0.57
var designation
WX
var max
8.918
var min
9.488

About HD 213631

HD 213631 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,524.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 8.95 and has spectral type A2 + A5:.

Its spectrum reads A2 + A5: — 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 213631 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 8.95, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 213631 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 213631 is an uncommon variable star

HD 213631 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 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-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.