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Uncommon variable star 23 EP

HR 8895

RA 350.9771° · Dec -53.8087° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A4III — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 6.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Grus.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around September — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
0.759
bv
0.258
constellation
Gru
dist ly
386.8993
luminosity
43.2912
mag
6.13
name
HR 8895
spect
A4III
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
DQ
var max
6.083
var min
6.163

About HR 8895

HR 8895 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 386.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Gru, shines at apparent magnitude 6.13 and has spectral type A4III.

Its spectrum reads A4III — 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 HR 8895 in the constellation Gru. At apparent magnitude 6.13, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 8895 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 HR 8895 is an uncommon variable star

HR 8895 scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, White A-type star, Giant 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.