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Rare variable star 46 EP

9 Cep

RA 324.4801° · Dec 62.0819° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
46 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 46

4 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2Ib — 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 4.8 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.2) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-15.24
bv
0.246
constellation
Cep
luminosity
108642562.3617
mag
4.76
name
9 Cep
spect
B2Ib
var amplitude
0.05
var designation
V337
var max
4.737
var min
4.787

About 9 Cep

9 Cep is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 4.76 and has spectral type B2Ib.

Its spectrum reads B2Ib — 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 9 Cep in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 4.76, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 9 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 9 Cep is a rare variable star

9 Cep scores 46 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.