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Anomaly variable star 78 EP

HD 112559

RA 194.1079° · Dec 65.9944° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
78 pts · Anomaly
Anomaly 120 pts → Mythic
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Supergiant +18
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 78

42 more points to reach Mythic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C7I — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • 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.

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 6.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Draco.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • 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
-1.543
bv
3.269
constellation
Dra
dist ly
1405.8449
luminosity
360.7447
mag
6.63
name
HD 112559
spect
C7I
var amplitude
0.77
var designation
RY
var max
6.42
var min
7.19

About HD 112559

HD 112559 is an anomaly variable star. It lies about 1,405.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 6.63 and has spectral type C7I.

Its spectrum reads C7I — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HD 112559 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 6.63, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 112559 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 112559 is an anomaly variable star

HD 112559 scores 78 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the anomaly tier. Another 42 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Carbon star (sooty red), Supergiant, Deep red star, Strongly 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.