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Epic variable star 70 EP

HR 977

RA 48.1381° · Dec -57.3215° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
70 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Bright giant +12
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 70

8 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C5II — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.
  • 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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Horologium.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

absmag
-1.826
bv
2.419
constellation
Hor
dist ly
1048.7331
luminosity
468.1661
mag
5.71
name
HR 977
spect
C5II
var amplitude
0.42
var designation
TW
var max
5.518
var min
5.938

About HR 977

HR 977 is an epic variable star. It lies about 1,048.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hor, shines at apparent magnitude 5.71 and has spectral type C5II.

Its spectrum reads C5II — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HR 977 in the constellation Hor. At apparent magnitude 5.71, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 977 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 977 is an epic variable star

HR 977 scores 70 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Carbon star (sooty red), Bright giant, Deep red 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.