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Epic variable star 54 EP

HD 158186

RA 262.3039° · Dec -31.5343° · star

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Score breakdown

· 9 badges
54 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Bright giant +12
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • On the zodiac +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 54

24 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2/B3II — 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 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 51.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.783
bv
-0.017
constellation
Sco
dist ly
2938.3423
luminosity
1130.3163
mag
6.99
name
HD 158186
spect
B2/B3II
var amplitude
0.12
var designation
V1081
var max
6.975
var min
7.095

About HD 158186

HD 158186 is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,938.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 6.99 and has spectral type B2/B3II.

Its spectrum reads B2/B3II — 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 158186 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 6.99, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 158186 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 158186 is an epic variable star

HD 158186 scores 54 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 24 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 9 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Bright giant, Blue-white star, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) and Gently variable — 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.