Epic variable star 50 EP

HD 214419

RA 339.2248° · Dec 56.9058° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges

50 pts · Epic

Epic 78 pts → Anomaly

Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) +34
Variable star +5
Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
Gently variable +4
A named variable star +3

Total score 50

28 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

Variable star · +5
Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) · +34
Gently variable · +4
A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 2.4 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 WN7 (SB1) — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.
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 8.9 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 yellow-white (B−V 0.4) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
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: -11.14
bv: 0.375
constellation: Cep
luminosity: 2488857.3183
mag: 8.86
name: HD 214419
spect: WN7 (SB1)
var amplitude: 0.41
var designation: CQ
var max: 8.723
var min: 9.133

Nearby objects

About HD 214419

HD 214419 is an epic variable star. It sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 8.86 and has spectral type WN7 (SB1).

Its spectrum reads WN7 (SB1) — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.

How to see it

Look for HD 214419 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 8.86, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 214419 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 214419 is an epic variable star

HD 214419 scores 50 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 28 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself), 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.