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Common variable star 19 EP

HD 82620

RA 144.1709° · Dec 69.6366° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F0 — 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 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Ursa Major.
  • 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 February — 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. ≈ 7.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.748
bv
0.3
constellation
UMa
dist ly
401.6699
luminosity
17.41
mag
7.2
name
HD 82620
spect
F0
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
DL
var max
7.168
var min
7.228

About HD 82620

HD 82620 is a common variable star. It lies about 401.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 7.2 and has spectral type F0.

Its spectrum reads F0 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 82620 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 7.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 82620 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 82620 is a common variable star

HD 82620 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), 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.