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Common variable star 19 EP

HD 109247

RA 188.2286° · Dec 54.7952° · 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

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.

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 8.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 9.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.108
bv
0.455
constellation
UMa
dist ly
529.4741
luminosity
12.4968
mag
8.16
name
HD 109247
spect
F2
var amplitude
0.33
var designation
II
var max
7.995
var min
8.325

About HD 109247

HD 109247 is a common variable star. It lies about 529.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.16 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 HD 109247 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 8.16, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 109247 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 109247 is a common variable star

HD 109247 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.