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Epic variable star 66 EP

HD 183556

RA 290.3981° · Dec 76.5596° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
66 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Bright giant +12
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 66

12 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C5II — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.
  • 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 6.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Draco.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

absmag
-1.714
bv
2.673
constellation
Dra
dist ly
1259.2896
luminosity
422.2795
mag
6.22
name
HD 183556
spect
C5II
var amplitude
0.4
var designation
UX
var max
6.006
var min
6.406

About HD 183556

HD 183556 is an epic variable star. It lies about 1,259.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 6.22 and has spectral type C5II.

Its spectrum reads C5II — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HD 183556 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 6.22, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 183556 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 183556 is an epic variable star

HD 183556 scores 66 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Carbon star (sooty red), Bright giant, Deep red 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.