About HIP 54865
HIP 54865 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 11.94 and has spectral type Fp.
Its spectrum reads Fp — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Common variable star 15 EP
HIP 54865
RA 168.5139° · Dec -51.5488° · star
Score breakdown
· 4 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Variable star +5
- Gently variable +4
- Yellow-white F-type star +3
- A named variable star +3
Total score 15
7 more points to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Variable star · +5
- Yellow-white F-type star · +3
- Gently variable · +4
- A named variable star · +3
Trivia
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 143.2 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 Fp — 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.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 11.9 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Centaurus.
- 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.
What's in a name
- Its catalogue. The HIP number comes from Hipparcos, the ESA satellite that between 1989 and 1993 pinned down 118,000 stars precisely enough to triangulate their distances.
How we came to know it
- Cosmic yardstick. Variable stars are how we measured the universe. In 1912 Henrietta Leavitt showed that a pulsating star's rhythm reveals its true brightness — turning these stars into distance markers.
Properties
- absmag
- -8.06
- constellation
- Cen
- luminosity
- 145881.426
- mag
- 11.94
- name
- HIP 54865
- spect
- Fp
- var amplitude
- 0.45
- var designation
- V901
- var max
- 11.766
- var min
- 12.216
How to see it
Look for HIP 54865 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 11.94, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HIP 54865 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 HIP 54865 is a common variable star
HIP 54865 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, 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.