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Epic variable star 73 EP

20Iot CMa

RA 104.0343° · Dec -17.0542° · star

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Score breakdown

· 9 badges
73 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Blindingly luminous (Mv < −5) +20
  • Supergiant +18
  • 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 73

5 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Blindingly luminous (Mv < −5) · +20
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3Ib/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.

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 4.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-5.07
bv
-0.063
constellation
CMa
dist ly
2508.8924
luminosity
9289.6639
mag
4.36
name
20Iot CMa
spect
B3Ib/II
var amplitude
0.02
var designation
Iot
var max
4.351
var min
4.371

About 20Iot CMa

20Iot CMa is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,508.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 4.36 and has spectral type B3Ib/II.

Its spectrum reads B3Ib/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 20Iot CMa in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 4.36, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 20Iot CMa 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 20Iot CMa is an epic variable star

20Iot CMa scores 73 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 9 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, Blue-white star, Blindingly luminous (Mv < −5) and Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) — 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.