← Back to dex
Uncommon variable star 31 EP

HD 111953

RA 193.5745° · Dec -70.0368° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Orange K-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K1II/III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • 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 6.9 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 April — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-0.699
bv
1.267
constellation
Mus
dist ly
1069.3641
luminosity
165.8059
mag
6.88
name
HD 111953
spect
K1II/III
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
EF
var max
6.861
var min
6.901

About HD 111953

HD 111953 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,069.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mus, shines at apparent magnitude 6.88 and has spectral type K1II/III.

Its spectrum reads K1II/III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 111953 in the constellation Mus. At apparent magnitude 6.88, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 111953 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 111953 is an uncommon variable star

HD 111953 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Orange K-type star, Bright giant, 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.