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Uncommon variable star 24 EP

HD 62678

RA 116.1226° · Dec -21.5068° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
24 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 839.5 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 B4/B5III: — 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.
  • 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 10 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.2) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-9.98
bv
0.203
constellation
Pup
luminosity
855066.7129
mag
10.02
name
HD 62678
spect
B4/B5III:
var amplitude
0.21
var designation
V388
var max
9.883
var min
10.093

About HD 62678

HD 62678 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 10.02 and has spectral type B4/B5III:.

Its spectrum reads B4/B5III: — 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 62678 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 10.02, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 62678 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 62678 is an uncommon variable star

HD 62678 scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star, 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.