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Common variable star 15 EP

HIP 63911

RA 196.4508° · Dec -65.5129° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads Fp — 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 10.3 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 12.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
3.607
bv
1.015
constellation
Mus
dist ly
698.407
luminosity
3.142
mag
10.26
name
HIP 63911
spect
Fp
var amplitude
0.21
var designation
Y
var max
10.164
var min
10.374

About HIP 63911

HIP 63911 is a common variable star. It lies about 698.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mus, shines at apparent magnitude 10.26 and has spectral type Fp.

Its spectrum reads Fp — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 63911 in the constellation Mus. At apparent magnitude 10.26, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 63911 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 HIP 63911 is a common variable star

HIP 63911 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, 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.