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Uncommon variable star 23 EP

HD 83266

RA 143.9092° · Dec -48.5136° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads Ap SiCr — 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 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Vela.
  • 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 February — 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. ≈ 32.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.117
bv
0.006
constellation
Vel
dist ly
1874.4596
luminosity
97.0063
mag
8.68
name
HD 83266
spect
Ap SiCr
var amplitude
0.1
var designation
QV
var max
8.639
var min
8.739

About HD 83266

HD 83266 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,874.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 8.68 and has spectral type Ap SiCr.

Its spectrum reads Ap SiCr — 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 83266 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 8.68, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 83266 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 83266 is an uncommon variable star

HD 83266 scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type 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.