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Rare variable star 39 EP

HD 151831

RA 252.7461° · Dec -26.7810° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
39 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • On the zodiac +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 39

11 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 529.7 thousand times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8/B9Ib — 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 10.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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 June — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.1) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-9.48
bv
0.054
constellation
Sco
luminosity
539510.6225
mag
10.52
name
HD 151831
spect
B8/B9Ib
var amplitude
0.4
var designation
V1067
var max
10.348
var min
10.748

About HD 151831

HD 151831 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 10.52 and has spectral type B8/B9Ib.

Its spectrum reads B8/B9Ib — 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 151831 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 10.52, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 151831 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 151831 is a rare variable star

HD 151831 scores 39 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, 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.