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Epic variable star 56 EP

HIP 90883

RA 278.0837° · Dec 36.9988° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
56 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 56

22 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C8 — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • 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 7.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Lyra.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north 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. ≈ 41.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.715
bv
5.46
constellation
Lyr
dist ly
2346.4462
luminosity
422.6686
mag
7.57
name
HIP 90883
spect
C8
var amplitude
0.5
var designation
T
var max
7.385
var min
7.885

About HIP 90883

HIP 90883 is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,346.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lyr, shines at apparent magnitude 7.57 and has spectral type C8.

Its spectrum reads C8 — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HIP 90883 in the constellation Lyr. At apparent magnitude 7.57, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 90883 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 HIP 90883 is an epic variable star

HIP 90883 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 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Carbon star (sooty red), Deep red star, Strongly 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.