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Uncommon variable star 29 EP

HR 3883

RA 146.4193° · Dec -57.1860° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8III/IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • 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 6.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Carina.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
-0.803
bv
-0.108
constellation
Car
dist ly
929.2194
luminosity
182.4736
mag
6.47
name
HR 3883
spect
B8III/IV
var amplitude
0.1
var designation
V487
var max
6.411
var min
6.511

About HR 3883

HR 3883 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 929.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 6.47 and has spectral type B8III/IV.

Its spectrum reads B8III/IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HR 3883 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 6.47, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 3883 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 HR 3883 is an uncommon variable star

HR 3883 scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type star, Giant 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.