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Common variable star 19 EP

HIP 59411

RA 182.8108° · Dec 47.8288° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 349.9 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 F2 — 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 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Ursa Major.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around March — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow-white (B−V 0.4) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-9.03
bv
0.444
constellation
UMa
luminosity
356451.1334
mag
10.97
name
HIP 59411
spect
F2
var amplitude
0.46
var designation
AB
var max
10.714
var min
11.174

About HIP 59411

HIP 59411 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 10.97 and has spectral type F2.

Its spectrum reads F2 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 59411 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 10.97, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 59411 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 59411 is a common variable star

HIP 59411 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), 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.