← Back to dex
Uncommon variable star 27 EP

HIP 40178

RA 123.0933° · Dec -36.9438° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
27 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Strongly variable +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 27

7 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Strongly variable · +10
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F9 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived 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 8.2 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. ≈ 41.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.156
bv
0.57
constellation
Pup
dist ly
2380.7007
luminosity
252.5806
mag
8.16
name
HIP 40178
spect
F9
var amplitude
0.91
var designation
AT
var max
7.566
var min
8.476

About HIP 40178

HIP 40178 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 2,380.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 8.16 and has spectral type F9.

Its spectrum reads F9 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 40178 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 8.16, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 40178 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 HIP 40178 is an uncommon variable star

HIP 40178 scores 27 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Yellow-white F-type star, Strongly 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.