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Rare variable star 48 EP

HD 190967

RA 301.5414° · Dec 35.3860° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
48 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 48

2 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1Ib-II — 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 supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.
  • 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 8.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cygnus.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-1.755
bv
0.324
constellation
Cyg
dist ly
3136.1155
luminosity
438.5307
mag
8.16
name
HD 190967
spect
B1Ib-II
var amplitude
0.63
var designation
V448
var max
7.994
var min
8.624

About HD 190967

HD 190967 is a rare variable star. It lies about 3,136.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cyg, shines at apparent magnitude 8.16 and has spectral type B1Ib-II.

Its spectrum reads B1Ib-II — 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 190967 in the constellation Cyg. At apparent magnitude 8.16, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 190967 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 190967 is a rare variable star

HD 190967 scores 48 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, 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.