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Rare variable star 46 EP

HD 239923

RA 334.8372° · Dec 58.9531° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
46 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • 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
Total score 46

4 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3Ib — 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 8.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cepheus.
  • 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 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
-0.373
bv
0.816
constellation
Cep
dist ly
2280.8112
luminosity
122.8005
mag
8.85
name
HD 239923
spect
B3Ib
var amplitude
0.11
var designation
V449
var max
8.796
var min
8.906

About HD 239923

HD 239923 is a rare variable star. It lies about 2,280.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 8.85 and has spectral type B3Ib.

Its spectrum reads B3Ib — 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 239923 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 8.85, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 239923 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 239923 is a rare variable star

HD 239923 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, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, 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.