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Epic variable star 68 EP

HIP 30409

RA 95.9130° · Dec -27.0657° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
68 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Bright giant +12
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 68

10 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C6II — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.
  • 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 8.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Canis Major.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-0.881
bv
2.86
constellation
CMa
dist ly
2452.3008
luminosity
196.065
mag
8.5
name
HIP 30409
spect
C6II
var amplitude
0.54
var designation
IV
var max
8.204
var min
8.744

About HIP 30409

HIP 30409 is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,452.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.5 and has spectral type C6II.

Its spectrum reads C6II — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HIP 30409 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 8.5, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 30409 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 HIP 30409 is an epic variable star

HIP 30409 scores 68 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Carbon star (sooty red), Bright giant, Deep red star, Strongly 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.