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Common variable star 20 EP

HD 72303

RA 127.3742° · Dec -54.2118° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads Ap Si — 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.

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 6.4 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. ≈ 12.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.308
bv
-0.108
constellation
Car
dist ly
729.6553
luminosity
115.6645
mag
6.44
name
HD 72303
spect
Ap Si
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
V469
var max
6.413
var min
6.453

About HD 72303

HD 72303 is a common variable star. It lies about 729.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 6.44 and has spectral type Ap Si.

Its spectrum reads Ap Si — 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 72303 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 6.44, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 72303 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 72303 is a common variable star

HD 72303 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, White A-type star, Blue-white star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.