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Rare variable star 41 EP

HD 51110

RA 103.7989° · Dec -21.8719° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.8 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 B9Ib/II — 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 supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.
  • 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 8.7 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 January — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out blue-white (B−V -0.2) — the hallmark of a surface far hotter than the Sun's.

Properties

absmag
-11.28
bv
-0.16
constellation
CMa
luminosity
2831391.9958
mag
8.72
name
HD 51110
spect
B9Ib/II
var amplitude
0.1
var designation
LM
var max
8.674
var min
8.774

About HD 51110

HD 51110 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.72 and has spectral type B9Ib/II.

Its spectrum reads B9Ib/II — 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 51110 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 8.72, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 51110 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 51110 is a rare variable star

HD 51110 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, Blue-white star, Gently 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.