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Epic variable star 75 EP

24Omi2CMa

RA 105.7561° · Dec -23.8333° · star

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Score breakdown

· 9 badges
75 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
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 75

3 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
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 38.1 thousand 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 B3Ia — 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 luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.
  • 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 3 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.

Properties

absmag
-6.621
bv
-0.077
constellation
CMa
dist ly
2764.0338
luminosity
38761.4487
mag
3.02
name
24Omi2CMa
spect
B3Ia
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
Omi-2
var max
2.985
var min
3.065

About 24Omi2CMa

24Omi2CMa is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,764 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 3.02 and has spectral type B3Ia.

Its spectrum reads B3Ia — 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 24Omi2CMa in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 3.02, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 24Omi2CMa 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 24Omi2CMa is an epic variable star

24Omi2CMa scores 75 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 3 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 Gently variable — 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.