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Uncommon variable star 27 EP

HD 103137

RA 178.0739° · Dec -65.4042° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
27 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • 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
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F8:p — 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.

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 9.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Musca.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 26.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.532
bv
0.982
constellation
Mus
dist ly
1489.2968
luminosity
21.2422
mag
9.83
name
HD 103137
spect
F8:p
var amplitude
1.09
var designation
UU
var max
9.151
var min
10.241

About HD 103137

HD 103137 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,489.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mus, shines at apparent magnitude 9.83 and has spectral type F8:p.

Its spectrum reads F8:p — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 103137 in the constellation Mus. At apparent magnitude 9.83, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 103137 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 103137 is an uncommon variable star

HD 103137 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 5 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Yellow-white F-type 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.