← Back to dex
Rare variable star 34 EP

HD 218674

RA 347.3198° · Dec 49.6506° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 7 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • 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
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 34

16 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3IV SB: — 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 6.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Andromeda.
  • 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 September — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

absmag
-1.691
bv
-0.043
constellation
And
dist ly
1591.0049
luminosity
413.4281
mag
6.75
name
HD 218674
spect
B3IV SB:
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
KY
var max
6.723
var min
6.783

About HD 218674

HD 218674 is a rare variable star. It lies about 1,591 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation And, shines at apparent magnitude 6.75 and has spectral type B3IV SB:.

Its spectrum reads B3IV SB: — 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 218674 in the constellation And. At apparent magnitude 6.75, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 218674 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 218674 is a rare variable star

HD 218674 scores 34 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare 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), Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence), Blue-white 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.