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Epic variable star 56 EP

6 Cep

RA 319.8426° · Dec 64.8719° · star

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Score breakdown

· 10 badges
56 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • 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
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3IVe — 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 subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.
  • 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 Cepheus.
  • 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 August — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

absmag
-3.736
bv
-0.045
constellation
Cep
dist ly
1988.7561
luminosity
2718.9424
mag
5.19
name
6 Cep
spect
B3IVe
var amplitude
0.17
var designation
V382
var max
5.051
var min
5.221

About 6 Cep

6 Cep is an epic variable star. It lies about 1,988.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 5.19 and has spectral type B3IVe.

Its spectrum reads B3IVe — 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 6 Cep in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 5.19, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 6 Cep 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 6 Cep is an epic variable star

6 Cep 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 10 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence), Blue-white star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.