About 48 Aur
48 Aur is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Aur, shines at apparent magnitude 5.75 and has spectral type F5.5Ibv.
Its spectrum reads F5.5Ibv — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Rare variable star 47 EP
48 Aur
RA 97.1420° · Dec 30.4930° · star
Score breakdown
· 6 badgesRare 50 pts → Epic
- Supergiant +18
- Strongly variable +10
- Naked-eye visible +8
- Variable star +5
- Yellow-white F-type star +3
- A named variable star +3
Total score 47
3 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- Variable star · +5
- Naked-eye visible · +8
- Yellow-white F-type star · +3
- Supergiant · +18
- Strongly variable · +10
- A named variable star · +3
Trivia
What it actually is
- Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F5.5Ibv — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
- Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.
- 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 5.8 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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 yellow (B−V 0.8) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.
- Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.
Properties
- absmag
- -14.25
- bv
- 0.779
- constellation
- Aur
- luminosity
- 43651583.224
- mag
- 5.75
- name
- 48 Aur
- spect
- F5.5Ibv
- var amplitude
- 0.87
- var designation
- RT
- var max
- 4.928
- var min
- 5.798
How to see it
Look for 48 Aur in the constellation Aur. At apparent magnitude 5.75, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.
Like any astronomical target, 48 Aur 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 48 Aur is a rare variable star
48 Aur scores 47 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Yellow-white F-type star, Supergiant, 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.