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Uncommon variable star 29 EP

HD 271924

RA 91.9405° · Dec -66.9775° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A5III — 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 11.9 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Dorado.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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
5.482
bv
0.54
constellation
Dor
dist ly
638.27
luminosity
0.5587
mag
11.94
name
HD 271924
spect
A5III
var amplitude
1.26
var designation
VW
var max
11.072
var min
12.332

About HD 271924

HD 271924 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 638.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dor, shines at apparent magnitude 11.94 and has spectral type A5III.

Its spectrum reads A5III — 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 271924 in the constellation Dor. At apparent magnitude 11.94, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 271924 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 271924 is an uncommon variable star

HD 271924 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 5 science badges — Variable star, White A-type star, Giant star, 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.