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Rare variable star 37 EP

3 Vul

RA 290.7120° · Dec 26.2624° · 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 B6III — 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 5.2 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Vulpecula.
  • 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 July — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
-0.185
bv
-0.119
constellation
Vul
dist ly
392.9589
luminosity
103.2761
mag
5.22
name
3 Vul
spect
B6III
var amplitude
0.07
var designation
V377
var max
5.19
var min
5.26

About 3 Vul

3 Vul is a rare variable star. It lies about 393 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vul, shines at apparent magnitude 5.22 and has spectral type B6III.

Its spectrum reads B6III — 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 3 Vul in the constellation Vul. At apparent magnitude 5.22, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 3 Vul 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 3 Vul is a rare variable star

3 Vul 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.