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Rare variable star 41 EP

HD 107209

RA 184.9738° · Dec -62.8542° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Under the Southern Cross · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0Iab — 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 supergiant. Drop it where the Sun is and its surface would engulf the inner planets.
  • 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 6.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Crux.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.2) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • 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
-13.19
bv
0.248
constellation
Cru
luminosity
16443717.2321
mag
6.81
name
HD 107209
spect
A0Iab
var amplitude
0.05
var designation
DM
var max
6.785
var min
6.835

About HD 107209

HD 107209 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 6.81 and has spectral type A0Iab.

Its spectrum reads A0Iab — 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 107209 in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 6.81, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 107209 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 107209 is a rare variable star

HD 107209 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Under the Southern Cross, White A-type star, Supergiant, 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.