Common variable star 21 EP

HD 37453

RA 84.9859° · Dec 30.0865° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges

21 pts · Common

Common 22 pts → Uncommon

Giant star +6
Variable star +5
Gently variable +4
Yellow-white F-type star +3
A named variable star +3

Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

Variable star · +5
Yellow-white F-type star · +3
Giant star · +6
Gently variable · +4
A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 4.9 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 F4III SB — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the 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.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 8.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Auriga.
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 December — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 0.9) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

Properties

absmag: -11.89
bv: 0.874
constellation: Aur
luminosity: 4965923.2145
mag: 8.11
name: HD 37453
spect: F4III SB
var amplitude: 0.1
var designation: V617
var max: 8.072
var min: 8.172

Nearby objects

About HD 37453

HD 37453 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Aur, shines at apparent magnitude 8.11 and has spectral type F4III SB.

Its spectrum reads F4III SB — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 37453 in the constellation Aur. At apparent magnitude 8.11, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 37453 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 37453 is a common variable star

HD 37453 scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Yellow-white F-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.