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Common variable star 18 EP

HD 148013

RA 247.0685° · Dec -57.2116° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8/B9V — 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 7.7 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 15.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.52
bv
0.026
constellation
Nor
dist ly
898.5014
luminosity
53.9511
mag
7.72
name
HD 148013
spect
B8/B9V
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
PQ
var max
7.697
var min
7.737

About HD 148013

HD 148013 is a common variable star. It lies about 898.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Nor, shines at apparent magnitude 7.72 and has spectral type B8/B9V.

Its spectrum reads B8/B9V — 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 148013 in the constellation Nor. At apparent magnitude 7.72, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 148013 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 148013 is a common variable star

HD 148013 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.