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Rare variable star 36 EP

HD 147985

RA 246.7364° · Dec -43.7992° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
36 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 36

14 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1/B2II/III — 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.
  • 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 7.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Norma.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 31.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.802
bv
0.148
constellation
Nor
dist ly
1801.9669
luminosity
182.3056
mag
7.91
name
HD 147985
spect
B1/B2II/III
var amplitude
0.07
var designation
V348
var max
7.878
var min
7.948

About HD 147985

HD 147985 is a rare variable star. It lies about 1,802 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Nor, shines at apparent magnitude 7.91 and has spectral type B1/B2II/III.

Its spectrum reads B1/B2II/III — 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 HD 147985 in the constellation Nor. At apparent magnitude 7.91, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 147985 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 147985 is a rare variable star

HD 147985 scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Bright giant, 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.