← Back to dex
Rare variable star 38 EP

32 Cas

RA 17.9224° · Dec 65.0189° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 8 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • 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
0.191
bv
-0.072
constellation
Cas
dist ly
388.2809
luminosity
73.0466
mag
5.57
name
32 Cas
spect
B9IV
var amplitude
0.02
var designation
RU
var max
5.564
var min
5.584

About 32 Cas

32 Cas is a rare variable star. It lies about 388.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 5.57 and has spectral type B9IV.

Its spectrum reads B9IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for 32 Cas in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 5.57, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 32 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 32 Cas is a rare variable star

32 Cas scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence), Blue-white star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.