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Epic variable star 66 EP

HR 2699

RA 107.3890° · Dec -16.2345° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
66 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Supergiant +18
  • Fades out of naked-eye view +16
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 66

12 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • Fades out of naked-eye view · +16
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1Ib/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 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
-3.178
bv
0.04
constellation
CMa
dist ly
2233.9452
luminosity
1626.2975
mag
6
name
HR 2699
spect
B1Ib/II
var amplitude
0.03
var designation
OS
var max
5.984
var min
6.014

About HR 2699

HR 2699 is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,233.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 6 and has spectral type B1Ib/II.

Its spectrum reads B1Ib/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 HR 2699 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 6, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 2699 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 2699 is an epic variable star

HR 2699 scores 66 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 12 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, Supergiant, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2), Barely variable (under 0.05 mag), Fades out of naked-eye view 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.