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Epic variable star 56 EP

HD 160641

RA 265.4649° · Dec -17.8968° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
56 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Supergiant +18
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 56

22 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Blazing O-type star · +26
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 981.7 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 O9.5-B1Ia(p) — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.
  • 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 9.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Ophiuchus.
  • 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 0.3) — 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
-10.15
bv
0.269
constellation
Oph
luminosity
1000000
mag
9.85
name
HD 160641
spect
O9.5-B1Ia(p)
var amplitude
0.19
var designation
V2076
var max
9.786
var min
9.976

About HD 160641

HD 160641 is an epic variable star. It sits in the constellation Oph, shines at apparent magnitude 9.85 and has spectral type O9.5-B1Ia(p).

Its spectrum reads O9.5-B1Ia(p) — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for HD 160641 in the constellation Oph. At apparent magnitude 9.85, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 160641 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 160641 is an epic variable star

HD 160641 scores 56 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 22 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Blazing O-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.