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Common variable star 15 EP

HD 97048

RA 167.0140° · Dec -77.6549° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0pshe — 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 Chamaeleon.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around March — 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. ≈ 9.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.44
bv
0.369
constellation
Cha
dist ly
516.8875
luminosity
9.2045
mag
8.44
name
HD 97048
spect
A0pshe
var amplitude
0.05
var designation
CU
var max
8.413
var min
8.463

About HD 97048

HD 97048 is a common variable star. It lies about 516.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cha, shines at apparent magnitude 8.44 and has spectral type A0pshe.

Its spectrum reads A0pshe — 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 97048 in the constellation Cha. At apparent magnitude 8.44, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 97048 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 97048 is a common variable star

HD 97048 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, White A-type 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.