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Uncommon variable star 26 EP

HD 33461

RA 78.0604° · Dec 41.2152° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2:V:nne — 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.
  • 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 7.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Auriga.
  • 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 December — 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. ≈ 46.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.76
bv
0.194
constellation
Aur
dist ly
2651.6747
luminosity
440.5549
mag
7.79
name
HD 33461
spect
B2:V:nne
var amplitude
0.07
var designation
V415
var max
7.753
var min
7.823

About HD 33461

HD 33461 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 2,651.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aur, shines at apparent magnitude 7.79 and has spectral type B2:V:nne.

Its spectrum reads B2:V:nne — 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 33461 in the constellation Aur. At apparent magnitude 7.79, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 33461 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 33461 is an uncommon variable star

HD 33461 scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence 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.