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Epic variable star 50 EP

HD 144578

RA 241.0559° · Dec 50.4992° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
50 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 50

28 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.8 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C7.2e — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Hercules.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out deep orange-red (B−V 2.6) — one of the coolest surfaces a star can have while still fusing.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 2650 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-11.3
bv
2.6
constellation
Her
luminosity
2884031.5031
mag
8.7
name
HD 144578
spect
C7.2e
var amplitude
1.59
var designation
RR
var max
8.141
var min
9.731

Nearby objects

About HD 144578

HD 144578 is an epic variable star. It sits in the constellation Her, shines at apparent magnitude 8.7 and has spectral type C7.2e.

Its spectrum reads C7.2e — 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 144578 in the constellation Her. At apparent magnitude 8.7, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 144578 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 144578 is an epic variable star

HD 144578 scores 50 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 28 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Carbon star (sooty red), 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.