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Epic variable star 52 EP

HD 62150

RA 115.3055° · Dec -32.6439° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
52 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Supergiant +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 52

26 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
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B4Iab — 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. Drop it where the Sun is and its surface would engulf the inner planets.
  • 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 7.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Puppis.
  • 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
-2.133
bv
0.39
constellation
Pup
dist ly
3019.9629
luminosity
621.155
mag
7.7
name
HD 62150
spect
B4Iab
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
V442
var max
7.665
var min
7.745

About HD 62150

HD 62150 is an epic variable star. It lies about 3,020 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 7.7 and has spectral type B4Iab.

Its spectrum reads B4Iab — 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 62150 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 7.7, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 62150 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 62150 is an epic variable star

HD 62150 scores 52 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 26 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2), 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.