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Rare variable star 34 EP

21 Cas

RA 11.4129° · Dec 74.9881° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 34

16 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2IV — 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 subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.
  • 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 5.6 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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 October — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

absmag
0.797
bv
0.078
constellation
Cas
dist ly
303.4011
luminosity
41.8023
mag
5.64
name
21 Cas
spect
A2IV
var amplitude
0.2
var designation
YZ
var max
5.633
var min
5.833

About 21 Cas

21 Cas is a rare variable star. It lies about 303.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 5.64 and has spectral type A2IV.

Its spectrum reads A2IV — 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 21 Cas in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 5.64, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 21 Cas 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 21 Cas is a rare variable star

21 Cas scores 34 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence), 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.