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Common variable star 21 EP

HIP 33520

RA 104.5039° · Dec -0.3760° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Variable star +5
  • 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
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 390.8 thousand 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 F8 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived 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 10.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Monoceros.
  • 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 January — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.1) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4440 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-9.15
bv
1.134
constellation
Mon
luminosity
398107.1706
mag
10.85
name
HIP 33520
spect
F8
var amplitude
0.69
var designation
TZ
var max
10.5
var min
11.19

About HIP 33520

HIP 33520 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 10.85 and has spectral type F8.

Its spectrum reads F8 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 33520 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 10.85, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 33520 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 33520 is a common variable star

HIP 33520 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 4 science badges — Variable star, Yellow-white F-type 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.