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Epic variable star 62 EP

HD 206652

RA 326.5735° · Dec -65.3079° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
62 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
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 62

16 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • 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 C6II — 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 9.2 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Indus.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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
0.922
bv
2.45
constellation
Ind
dist ly
1509.9816
luminosity
37.2563
mag
9.25
name
HD 206652
spect
C6II
var amplitude
0.43
var designation
RR
var max
8.982
var min
9.412

About HD 206652

HD 206652 is an epic variable star. It lies about 1,510 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ind, shines at apparent magnitude 9.25 and has spectral type C6II.

Its spectrum reads C6II — 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 206652 in the constellation Ind. At apparent magnitude 9.25, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 206652 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 206652 is an epic variable star

HD 206652 scores 62 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), 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.