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Epic variable star 53 EP

Alniyat

RA 245.2971° · Dec -25.5928° · star

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Score breakdown

· 9 badges
53 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • On the zodiac +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1III — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 2.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Scorpius.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
-3.749
bv
0.299
constellation
Sco
dist ly
696.9145
luminosity
2751.6931
mag
2.9
name
Alniyat
named
yes
spect
B1III
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
Sig
var max
2.868
var min
2.928

About Alniyat

Alniyat is an epic variable star. It lies about 696.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 2.9 and has spectral type B1III.

Its spectrum reads B1III — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for Alniyat in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 2.9, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Alniyat 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 Alniyat is an epic variable star

Alniyat scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 9 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) and Gently variable — 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.