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Rare variable star 43 EP

HR 2603

RA 104.3115° · Dec -22.2029° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
43 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +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 43

7 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2III/IV — 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 6.6 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.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

absmag
-2.084
bv
-0.187
constellation
CMa
dist ly
1811.9779
luminosity
593.745
mag
6.64
name
HR 2603
spect
B2III/IV
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
HH
var max
6.623
var min
6.663

About HR 2603

HR 2603 is a rare variable star. It lies about 1,812 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 6.64 and has spectral type B2III/IV.

Its spectrum reads B2III/IV — 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 2603 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 6.64, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 2603 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 2603 is a rare variable star

HR 2603 scores 43 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Giant star, Blue-white star, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2), 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.