← Back to dex
Rare variable star 45 EP

HD 214975

RA 340.2173° · Dec 56.8295° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
45 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 45

5 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F6Ibvar — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider 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. 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 8.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-0.069
bv
1.144
constellation
Lac
dist ly
1734.8724
luminosity
92.8111
mag
8.56
name
HD 214975
spect
F6Ibvar
var amplitude
0.89
var designation
Z
var max
7.882
var min
8.772

About HD 214975

HD 214975 is a rare variable star. It lies about 1,734.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lac, shines at apparent magnitude 8.56 and has spectral type F6Ibvar.

Its spectrum reads F6Ibvar — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 214975 in the constellation Lac. At apparent magnitude 8.56, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 214975 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 214975 is a rare variable star

HD 214975 scores 45 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Yellow-white F-type star, Supergiant, 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.