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Uncommon variable star 28 EP

HD 66698

RA 120.9251° · Dec -29.4190° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads Ap... — 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.

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.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 36.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.294
bv
-0.044
constellation
Pup
dist ly
2090.7435
luminosity
286.8138
mag
7.74
name
HD 66698
spect
Ap...
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
V337
var max
7.713
var min
7.773

About HD 66698

HD 66698 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 2,090.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 7.74 and has spectral type Ap....

Its spectrum reads Ap... — 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 HD 66698 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 7.74, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 66698 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 66698 is an uncommon variable star

HD 66698 scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type star, Blue-white 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.