← Back to dex
Uncommon variable star 28 EP

3 Hya

RA 128.8675° · Dec -7.9823° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A1spe... — 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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Hydra.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 5.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.881
bv
-0.004
constellation
Hya
dist ly
302.8375
luminosity
38.6901
mag
5.72
name
3 Hya
spect
A1spe...
var amplitude
0.03
var designation
HV
var max
5.706
var min
5.736

About 3 Hya

3 Hya is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 302.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hya, shines at apparent magnitude 5.72 and has spectral type A1spe....

Its spectrum reads A1spe... — 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 3 Hya in the constellation Hya. At apparent magnitude 5.72, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 3 Hya 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 3 Hya is an uncommon variable star

3 Hya 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, Naked-eye visible, White A-type star, Blue-white star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.