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Uncommon variable star 31 EP

HD 166226

RA 273.7093° · Dec -66.8151° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8V — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.
  • 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 7.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Pavo.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-0.778
bv
-0.057
constellation
Pav
dist ly
1469.1713
luminosity
178.32
mag
7.49
name
HD 166226
spect
B8V
var amplitude
0.17
var designation
V356
var max
7.461
var min
7.631

About HD 166226

HD 166226 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,469.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pav, shines at apparent magnitude 7.49 and has spectral type B8V.

Its spectrum reads B8V — 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 166226 in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 7.49, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 166226 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 166226 is an uncommon variable star

HD 166226 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence star, Blue-white star, 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.