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Common variable star 17 EP

HD 293373

RA 107.3438° · Dec -0.8066° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 353.2 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 A5 — 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.
  • 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 11 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 brilliant white (B−V 0.3) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • 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
-9.04
bv
0.267
constellation
Mon
luminosity
359749.3352
mag
10.96
name
HD 293373
spect
A5
var amplitude
0.43
var designation
V651
var max
10.888
var min
11.318

Nearby objects

About HD 293373

HD 293373 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 10.96 and has spectral type A5.

Its spectrum reads A5 — 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 293373 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 10.96, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 293373 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 293373 is a common variable star

HD 293373 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, White A-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.