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Uncommon variable star 33 EP

HR 2258

RA 94.7577° · Dec 17.3253° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
33 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • 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 B9IIIsp... — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 6.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Orion.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
-0.808
bv
-0.094
constellation
Ori
dist ly
849.3647
luminosity
183.3158
mag
6.27
name
HR 2258
spect
B9IIIsp...
var amplitude
0.03
var designation
V1155
var max
6.255
var min
6.285

About HR 2258

HR 2258 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 849.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 6.27 and has spectral type B9IIIsp....

Its spectrum reads B9IIIsp... — 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 2258 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 6.27, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 2258 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 2258 is an uncommon variable star

HR 2258 scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, In Orion's hunting ground, Hot blue B-type star, Giant 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.