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Uncommon variable star 29 EP

HD 38238

RA 86.0783° · Dec 0.1446° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A7IIIvar — 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.
  • 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.

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 8.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Orion.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

absmag
2.766
bv
0.381
constellation
Ori
dist ly
547.2415
luminosity
6.8171
mag
8.89
name
HD 38238
spect
A7IIIvar
var amplitude
0.14
var designation
V351
var max
8.824
var min
8.964

About HD 38238

HD 38238 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 547.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 8.89 and has spectral type A7IIIvar.

Its spectrum reads A7IIIvar — 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 HD 38238 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 8.89, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 38238 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 38238 is an uncommon variable star

HD 38238 scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, In Orion's hunting ground, White A-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.