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Epic variable star 56 EP

HR 9097

RA 0.8571° · Dec 63.6405° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
56 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Supergiant +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • 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 56

22 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3Ia — 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 luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.
  • 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 6.2 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.

Properties

absmag
-3.174
bv
0.332
constellation
Cas
dist ly
2489.7405
luminosity
1620.317
mag
6.24
name
HR 9097
spect
B3Ia
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
V639
var max
6.208
var min
6.288

About HR 9097

HR 9097 is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,489.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 6.24 and has spectral type B3Ia.

Its spectrum reads B3Ia — 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 HR 9097 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 6.24, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 9097 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 HR 9097 is an epic variable star

HR 9097 scores 56 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 22 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), Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, 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.