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Uncommon variable star 24 EP

HD 246338

RA 85.4973° · Dec 29.5226° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
24 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
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B... — 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 8.9 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. ≈ 31.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.18
bv
0.35
constellation
Aur
dist ly
1792.0658
luminosity
73.7904
mag
8.88
name
HD 246338
spect
B...
var amplitude
0.11
var designation
V435
var max
8.82
var min
8.93

About HD 246338

HD 246338 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,792.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aur, shines at apparent magnitude 8.88 and has spectral type B....

Its spectrum reads B... — 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 246338 in the constellation Aur. At apparent magnitude 8.88, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 246338 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 246338 is an uncommon variable star

HD 246338 scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type 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.