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Rare variable star 39 EP

HD 223960

RA 358.4583° · Dec 60.8534° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
39 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 39

11 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0Ia comp — 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 luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.
  • 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 6.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
  • 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 September — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow (B−V 0.6) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.
  • 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
-13.08
bv
0.626
constellation
Cas
luminosity
14859356.4229
mag
6.92
name
HD 223960
spect
A0Ia comp
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
V819
var max
6.878
var min
6.958

About HD 223960

HD 223960 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 6.92 and has spectral type A0Ia comp.

Its spectrum reads A0Ia comp — 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 223960 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 6.92, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 223960 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 223960 is a rare variable star

HD 223960 scores 39 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star, Supergiant, 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.