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Epic variable star 59 EP

HD 109372

RA 188.7269° · Dec -67.7569° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
59 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Fades out of naked-eye view +16
  • Bright giant +12
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 59

19 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Gently variable · +4
  • Fades out of naked-eye view · +16
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M6II/III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.
  • 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 6.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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.

Properties

absmag
-1.526
bv
1.514
constellation
Mus
dist ly
1098.1682
luminosity
355.1403
mag
6.11
name
HD 109372
spect
M6II/III
var amplitude
0.43
var designation
BO
var max
5.871
var min
6.301

About HD 109372

HD 109372 is an epic variable star. It lies about 1,098.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mus, shines at apparent magnitude 6.11 and has spectral type M6II/III.

Its spectrum reads M6II/III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for HD 109372 in the constellation Mus. At apparent magnitude 6.11, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 109372 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 109372 is an epic variable star

HD 109372 scores 59 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 19 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Cool red M-type star, Bright giant, Deep red star, Gently variable, Fades out of naked-eye view 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.