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Uncommon variable star 29 EP

HD 97528

RA 168.3021° · Dec -26.4651° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A1III — 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 a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 7.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Hydra.
  • 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 March — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
1.246
bv
0.137
constellation
Hya
dist ly
522.6859
luminosity
27.6439
mag
7.27
name
HD 97528
spect
A1III
var amplitude
1.89
var designation
TT
var max
7.236
var min
9.126

About HD 97528

HD 97528 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 522.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hya, shines at apparent magnitude 7.27 and has spectral type A1III.

Its spectrum reads A1III — 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 97528 in the constellation Hya. At apparent magnitude 7.27, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 97528 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 97528 is an uncommon variable star

HD 97528 scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, White A-type star, Giant star, Strongly 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.