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Uncommon variable star 31 EP

HR 1973

RA 85.5633° · Dec -34.6678° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9/B9.5V — 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 5.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Columba.
  • 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 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. ≈ 7.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.303
bv
-0.032
constellation
Col
dist ly
428.5886
luminosity
115.133
mag
5.29
name
HR 1973
spect
B9/B9.5V
var amplitude
0.03
var designation
WZ
var max
5.275
var min
5.305

About HR 1973

HR 1973 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 428.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Col, shines at apparent magnitude 5.29 and has spectral type B9/B9.5V.

Its spectrum reads B9/B9.5V — 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 1973 in the constellation Col. At apparent magnitude 5.29, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 1973 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 1973 is an uncommon variable star

HR 1973 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence star, Blue-white 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.