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Rare variable star 37 EP

HR 6819

RA 274.2814° · Dec -56.0234° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3IIIpe — 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 a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 5.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Telescopium.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
-1.478
bv
-0.05
constellation
Tel
dist ly
760.2703
luminosity
339.7817
mag
5.36
name
HR 6819
spect
B3IIIpe
var amplitude
0.07
var designation
QV
var max
5.316
var min
5.386

About HR 6819

HR 6819 is a rare variable star. It lies about 760.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tel, shines at apparent magnitude 5.36 and has spectral type B3IIIpe.

Its spectrum reads B3IIIpe — 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 HR 6819 in the constellation Tel. At apparent magnitude 5.36, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 6819 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 6819 is a rare variable star

HR 6819 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Hot blue B-type star, Giant 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.