Uncommon variable star 27 EP

HIP 39009

RA 119.7453° · Dec 72.7876° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges

27 pts · Uncommon

Uncommon 34 pts → Rare

Giant star +6
Variable star +5
White A-type star +5
Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
Gently variable +4
A named variable star +3

Total score 27

7 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

Variable star · +5
Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
White A-type star · +5
Giant star · +6
Gently variable · +4
A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 210.9 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 A3III-A6III — 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.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 11.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Camelopardalis.
Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — that's when to go looking.

What's in a name

Its catalogue. The HIP number comes from Hipparcos, the ESA satellite that between 1989 and 1993 pinned down 118,000 stars precisely enough to triangulate their distances.

Properties

absmag: -8.48
constellation: Cam
luminosity: 214783.0474
mag: 11.52
name: HIP 39009
spect: A3III-A6III
var amplitude: 0.46
var designation: UY
var max: 11.3
var min: 11.76

Nearby objects

About HIP 39009

HIP 39009 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation Cam, shines at apparent magnitude 11.52 and has spectral type A3III-A6III.

Its spectrum reads A3III-A6III — 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 HIP 39009 in the constellation Cam. At apparent magnitude 11.52, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 39009 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 39009 is an uncommon variable star

HIP 39009 scores 27 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star, Giant 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.