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Rare variable star 34 EP

HD 19644

RA 48.1481° · Dec 59.9197° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +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
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 4.3 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3II-III — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.
  • 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 8.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.2) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.

Properties

absmag
-11.75
bv
0.204
constellation
Cas
luminosity
4365158.3224
mag
8.25
name
HD 19644
spect
B3II-III
var amplitude
0.48
var designation
V368
var max
8.213
var min
8.693

About HD 19644

HD 19644 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 8.25 and has spectral type B3II-III.

Its spectrum reads B3II-III — 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 HD 19644 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 8.25, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 19644 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 19644 is a rare variable star

HD 19644 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, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Bright giant, 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.