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Uncommon variable star 25 EP

HR 1078

RA 53.3960° · Dec 39.8995° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A5m — 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.
  • 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 5.8 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Perseus.
  • 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.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 3.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.047
bv
0.139
constellation
Per
dist ly
182.8228
luminosity
13.219
mag
5.79
name
HR 1078
spect
A5m
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
IW
var max
5.762
var min
5.822

About HR 1078

HR 1078 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 182.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Per, shines at apparent magnitude 5.79 and has spectral type A5m.

Its spectrum reads A5m — 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 HR 1078 in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 5.79, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 1078 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 HR 1078 is an uncommon variable star

HR 1078 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, White A-type 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.