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Uncommon variable star 22 EP

HD 74888

RA 130.8753° · Dec -61.6888° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • 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 Si — 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 6.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Carina.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 14 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.086
bv
-0.111
constellation
Car
dist ly
795.5023
luminosity
94.2758
mag
6.85
name
HD 74888
spect
Ap Si
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
V472
var max
6.813
var min
6.873

About HD 74888

HD 74888 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 795.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 6.85 and has spectral type Ap Si.

Its spectrum reads Ap Si — 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 74888 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 6.85, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 74888 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 74888 is an uncommon variable star

HD 74888 scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, 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.