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Rare variable star 34 EP

Iot Tuc

RA 16.8276° · Dec -61.7753° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Sun-like G-type star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • 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
  • Sun-like G-type star · +8
  • Giant star · +6
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads G5III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
  • 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 5.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Tucana.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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
0.511
bv
0.884
constellation
Tuc
dist ly
304.2501
luminosity
54.4001
mag
5.36
name
Iot Tuc
spect
G5III
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
Iot
var max
5.327
var min
5.387

About Iot Tuc

Iot Tuc is a rare variable star. It lies about 304.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tuc, shines at apparent magnitude 5.36 and has spectral type G5III.

Its spectrum reads G5III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.

How to see it

Look for Iot Tuc in the constellation Tuc. At apparent magnitude 5.36, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Iot Tuc 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 Iot Tuc is a rare variable star

Iot Tuc 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 6 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Sun-like G-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.