← Back to dex
Uncommon variable star 30 EP

HD 208106

RA 327.9485° · Dec 61.9429° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 7 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2Vnp — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.
  • 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 7.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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
-1.738
bv
0.09
constellation
Cep
dist ly
2233.9452
luminosity
431.7178
mag
7.44
name
HD 208106
spect
B2Vnp
var amplitude
0.31
var designation
V383
var max
7.338
var min
7.648

About HD 208106

HD 208106 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 2,233.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 7.44 and has spectral type B2Vnp.

Its spectrum reads B2Vnp — 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 208106 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 7.44, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 208106 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 208106 is an uncommon variable star

HD 208106 scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence 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.