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Uncommon variable star 28 EP

HR 6204

RA 251.6667° · Dec -67.1097° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • 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 Ap — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • 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 5.1 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Triangulum Australe.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around June — 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. ≈ 12.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.549
bv
-0.08
constellation
TrA
dist ly
696.9145
luminosity
362.7438
mag
5.1
name
HR 6204
spect
Ap
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
LP
var max
5.082
var min
5.122

About HR 6204

HR 6204 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 696.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation TrA, shines at apparent magnitude 5.1 and has spectral type Ap.

Its spectrum reads Ap — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HR 6204 in the constellation TrA. At apparent magnitude 5.1, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 6204 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 6204 is an uncommon variable star

HR 6204 scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, White A-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.