← Back to dex
Rare variable star 46 EP

HD 89358

RA 154.2595° · Dec -57.9130° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 4 badges
46 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) +34
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 46

4 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) · +34
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 474.2 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 WN5 — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.
  • 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 10.6 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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 February — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow-white (B−V 0.5) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
  • 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
-9.36
bv
0.49
constellation
Car
luminosity
483058.802
mag
10.64
name
HD 89358
spect
WN5
var amplitude
0.21
var designation
V500
var max
10.507
var min
10.717

About HD 89358

HD 89358 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 10.64 and has spectral type WN5.

Its spectrum reads WN5 — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.

How to see it

Look for HD 89358 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 10.64, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 89358 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 89358 is a rare variable star

HD 89358 scores 46 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself), 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.