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Common variable star 15 EP

2 Pup

RA 116.3697° · Dec -14.6862° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0/A1V — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • 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 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow-white (B−V 0.3) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
  • 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.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 7190 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-12.97
bv
0.345
constellation
Pup
luminosity
13427649.6114
mag
7.03
name
2 Pup
spect
A0/A1V
var designation
PV

About 2 Pup

2 Pup is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 7.03 and has spectral type A0/A1V.

Its spectrum reads A0/A1V — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for 2 Pup in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 7.03, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, 2 Pup 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 2 Pup is a common variable star

2 Pup scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Variable star, White A-type star, Main-sequence star 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.