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Epic variable star 64 EP

HD 224855

RA 0.3160° · Dec 60.3553° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
64 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 64

14 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C5p — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • 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 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
  • 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 September — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 50.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.675
bv
2.835
constellation
Cas
dist ly
2861.0176
luminosity
1023.293
mag
7.04
name
HD 224855
spect
C5p
var amplitude
0.44
var designation
WZ
var max
6.836
var min
7.276

About HD 224855

HD 224855 is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,861 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 7.04 and has spectral type C5p.

Its spectrum reads C5p — 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 224855 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 7.04, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 224855 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 224855 is an epic variable star

HD 224855 scores 64 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Carbon star (sooty red), Deep red star, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2), 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.