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Rare variable star 45 EP

36 Aur

RA 90.2440° · Dec 47.9019° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
45 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 45

5 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9.5p SiFe — 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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 20.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.039
bv
-0.007
constellation
Aur
dist ly
1156.5815
luminosity
569.6394
mag
5.71
name
36 Aur
spect
B9.5p SiFe
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
V444
var max
5.694
var min
5.734

About 36 Aur

36 Aur is a rare variable star. It lies about 1,156.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aur, shines at apparent magnitude 5.71 and has spectral type B9.5p SiFe.

Its spectrum reads B9.5p SiFe — 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 36 Aur in the constellation Aur. At apparent magnitude 5.71, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 36 Aur 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 36 Aur is a rare variable star

36 Aur scores 45 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Hot blue B-type star, Blue-white star, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2), 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.