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Rare variable star 35 EP

HR 1643

RA 78.0936° · Dec 73.9467° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9p Si — 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 5.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Camelopardalis.
  • 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 December — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 6.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.12
bv
-0.108
constellation
Cam
dist ly
377.9329
luminosity
77.983
mag
5.44
name
HR 1643
spect
B9p Si
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
BN
var max
5.408
var min
5.468

About HR 1643

HR 1643 is a rare variable star. It lies about 377.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cam, shines at apparent magnitude 5.44 and has spectral type B9p Si.

Its spectrum reads B9p Si — 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 1643 in the constellation Cam. At apparent magnitude 5.44, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 1643 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 1643 is a rare variable star

HR 1643 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Blue-white 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.