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Rare variable star 40 EP

Chamukuy

RA 67.1656° · Dec 15.8709° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
40 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • On the zodiac +3
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 40

10 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A7III — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 3.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Taurus.
  • 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 November — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
0.081
bv
0.179
constellation
Tau
dist ly
150.3716
luminosity
80.8351
mag
3.4
name
Chamukuy
named
yes
spect
A7III
var amplitude
0.02
var designation
The-2
var max
3.391
var min
3.411

About Chamukuy

Chamukuy is a rare variable star. It lies about 150.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tau, shines at apparent magnitude 3.4 and has spectral type A7III.

Its spectrum reads A7III — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for Chamukuy in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 3.4, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Chamukuy 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 Chamukuy is a rare variable star

Chamukuy scores 40 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, On the zodiac, White A-type star, Giant star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.