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Common variable star 15 EP

HD 52788

RA 104.7669° · Dec -58.5148° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

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

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 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Carina.
  • 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 January — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 14 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.454
bv
0.401
constellation
Car
dist ly
795.5023
luminosity
22.8244
mag
8.39
name
HD 52788
spect
Fm...
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
V383
var max
8.364
var min
8.424

About HD 52788

HD 52788 is a common variable star. It lies about 795.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 8.39 and has spectral type Fm....

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

How to see it

Look for HD 52788 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 8.39, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 52788 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 52788 is a common variable star

HD 52788 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, Yellow-white F-type 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.