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Uncommon variable star 24 EP

HIP 28699

RA 90.9107° · Dec -31.5902° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
24 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • 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 13.2 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Columba.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 24.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
5.105
constellation
Col
dist ly
1387.8978
luminosity
0.7907
mag
13.25
name
HIP 28699
var amplitude
1.34
var designation
RW
var max
12.666
var min
14.006

About HIP 28699

HIP 28699 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,387.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Col and shines at apparent magnitude 13.25.

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.

How to see it

Look for HIP 28699 in the constellation Col. At apparent magnitude 13.25, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 28699 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 28699 is an uncommon variable star

HIP 28699 scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), 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.