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Epic variable star 54 EP

HD 215484

RA 341.0463° · Dec 61.7285° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
54 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 54

24 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C6.4 — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • 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 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. ≈ 53.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.283
bv
2.7
constellation
Cep
dist ly
3048.1868
luminosity
283.9226
mag
8.57
name
HD 215484
spect
C6.4
var amplitude
0.24
var designation
DG
var max
8.458
var min
8.698

About HD 215484

HD 215484 is an epic variable star. It lies about 3,048.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 8.57 and has spectral type C6.4.

Its spectrum reads C6.4 — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HD 215484 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 8.57, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 215484 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 215484 is an epic variable star

HD 215484 scores 54 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 24 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), Carbon star (sooty red), Deep red 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.