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Uncommon variable star 27 EP

HD 89069

RA 155.3168° · Dec 78.7643° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
27 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +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
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0p SrCrEu — 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 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Draco.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 26.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.132
bv
0.022
constellation
Dra
dist ly
1482.5274
luminosity
77.1259
mag
8.42
name
HD 89069
spect
A0p SrCrEu
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
DI
var max
8.392
var min
8.452

About HD 89069

HD 89069 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,482.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 8.42 and has spectral type A0p SrCrEu.

Its spectrum reads A0p SrCrEu — 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 89069 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 8.42, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 89069 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 89069 is an uncommon variable star

HD 89069 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, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-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.