CQ Cephei - HD214419 - HIP111633

CQ Cephei is a eclipsing Wolf-Rayet star that can be located in the constellation of Cepheus. HIP111633 is the reference name for the star in the Hipparcos Star Catalogue. The Id of the star in the Henry Draper catalogue is HD214419. CQ Cephei has alternative name(s), CQ_Cep.

Location of CQ Cephei

The location of the star in the galaxy is determined by the Right Ascension (R.A.) and Declination (Dec.), these are equivalent to the Longitude and Latitude on the Earth. The Right Ascension is how far expressed in time (hh:mm:ss) the star is along the celestial equator. If the R.A. is positive then its eastwards. The Declination is how far north or south the star is compared to the celestial equator and is expressed in degrees. For CQ Cephei, the location is 22h 36m 53.96 and +56d54`21.0 .

Wolf-Rayet Star

The star is a Wolf-Rayet, a rare type of star of which not many are known. These stars are extremely luminous and large compared to our Sun. They live fast and die hard in a matter of millions not billions of years like our Sun. They exhaust their hydrogen supplies, turning to other gasses and expand outwards with massive solar winds, moving a step closer in the stellar evolution towards their death in a super or hypernova explosion.

Physical Properties (Temperature, Radius) of CQ Cephei

CQ Cephei has a spectral type of WN7 (SB1). This means the star is a Wolf-Rayet star. The star has a B-V Colour Index of 0.37 which means the star's temperature has been calculated using information from Morgans @ Uni.edu at being 6,501 Kelvin.

CQ Cephei has been calculated as 88.92 times bigger than the Sun.The Sun's radius is 695,800km, therefore the star's radius is an estimated 61,870,070.51.km.

CQ Cephei Apparent and Absolute Magnitudes

CQ Cephei has an apparent magnitude of 8.86 which is how bright we see the star from Earth. Apparent Magnitude is also known as Visual Magnitude. If you used the 1997 Parallax value, you would get an absolute magnitude of -5.41 Magnitude, whether it be apparent/visual or absolute magnitude is measured by a number, the smaller the number, the brighter the Star is. Our own Sun is the brightest star and therefore has the lowest of all magnitudes, -26.74. A faint star will have a high number.

Distance to CQ Cephei

Using the original Hipparcos data that was released in 1997, the parallax to the star was given as 0.14 which gave the calculated distance to CQ Cephei as 23297.38 light years away from Earth or 7142.86 parsecs. It would take a spaceship travelling at the speed of light, 23297.38 years to get there. We don't have the technology or spaceship that can carry people over that distance yet.

Variable Type of CQ Cephei

The star is a eclipsing Beta Lyrae (Sheliak)/Detached Main-Sequence (subtype) variable type which means that its size changes over time. The Variable Type is usually named after the first star of that type to be spotted. CQ Cephei brightness ranges from a magnitude of 9.000 to a magnitude of 9.000 over its variable period. The smaller the magnitude, the brighter the star. Its variable/pulsating period lasts for 2.0 days (variability).

Source of Information

The source of the information if it has a Hip I.D. is from Simbad, the Hipparcos data library based at the University at Strasbourg, France. Hipparcos was a E.S.A. satellite operation launched in 1989 for four years. The items in red are values that I've calculated so they could well be wrong. Information regarding Stellar Age, Metallicity or Mass is from the E.U. Exoplanets. The information was obtained as of 12th Feb 2017.