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Uncommon variable star 32 EP

HD 215038

RA 339.8454° · Dec 75.6576° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0p — 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 8.2 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. ≈ 18.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.642
bv
-0.036
constellation
Cep
dist ly
1035.4158
luminosity
48.217
mag
8.15
name
HD 215038
spect
A0p
var amplitude
0.09
var designation
GQ
var max
8.112
var min
8.202

About HD 215038

HD 215038 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,035.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 8.15 and has spectral type A0p.

Its spectrum reads A0p — 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 215038 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 8.15, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 215038 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 215038 is an uncommon variable star

HD 215038 scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star, Blue-white star, 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.