← Back to dex
Uncommon variable star 24 EP

HD 50846

RA 103.7280° · Dec -1.3758° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 4 badges
24 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 3.9 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B5 + F0 EA — 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Monoceros.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-11.64
bv
0.038
constellation
Mon
luminosity
3944573.0208
mag
8.36
name
HD 50846
spect
B5 + F0 EA
var amplitude
0.84
var designation
AU
var max
8.164
var min
9.004

Nearby objects

About HD 50846

HD 50846 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 8.36 and has spectral type B5 + F0 EA.

Its spectrum reads B5 + F0 EA — 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 50846 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 8.36, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 50846 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 50846 is an uncommon variable star

HD 50846 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 4 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type 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.