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Uncommon variable star 31 EP

HIP 5658

RA 18.1715° · Dec 61.2133° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F9 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • 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 11.4 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 32.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.67
constellation
Cas
dist ly
1842.6894
luminosity
7.4473
mag
11.43
name
HIP 5658
spect
F9
var amplitude
0.83
var designation
UZ
var max
10.936
var min
11.766

About HIP 5658

HIP 5658 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,842.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 11.43 and has spectral type F9.

Its spectrum reads F9 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 5658 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 11.43, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 5658 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 HIP 5658 is an uncommon variable star

HIP 5658 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-type star, Strongly 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.