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Common variable star 21 EP

HR 6176

RA 249.1789° · Dec 15.4975° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9sp... — 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 6.4 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.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 7.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.854
bv
-0.055
constellation
Her
dist ly
411.813
luminosity
39.6643
mag
6.36
name
HR 6176
spect
B9sp...
var amplitude
0.02
var designation
V773
var max
6.351
var min
6.371

About HR 6176

HR 6176 is a common variable star. It lies about 411.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Her, shines at apparent magnitude 6.36 and has spectral type B9sp....

Its spectrum reads B9sp... — 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 HR 6176 in the constellation Her. At apparent magnitude 6.36, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 6176 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 HR 6176 is a common variable star

HR 6176 scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type star, Blue-white 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.