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Rare variable star 39 EP

Alsephina

RA 131.1759° · Dec -54.7088° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
39 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Binary star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 39

11 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Binary star · +6
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Not one star but two. It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A1V — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.
  • 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. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 1.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Vela.
  • 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.

Properties

absmag
-0.033
binary
yes
bv
0.043
constellation
Vel
dist ly
80.5524
luminosity
89.7842
mag
1.93
name
Alsephina
named
yes
spect
A1V
var amplitude
0.01
var designation
Del
var max
1.929
var min
1.939

About Alsephina

Alsephina is a rare variable star. It lies about 80.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 1.93 and has spectral type A1V.

It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

How to see it

Look for Alsephina in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 1.93, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Alsephina 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 Alsephina is a rare variable star

Alsephina scores 39 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Binary star, Has a proper name, White A-type star, Main-sequence 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.