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Common variable star 20 EP

HD 85567

RA 147.6189° · Dec -60.9675° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 3.2 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B5Vne — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.
  • 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.6 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 February — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.1) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.

Properties

absmag
-11.44
bv
0.123
constellation
Car
luminosity
3280952.9311
mag
8.56
name
HD 85567
spect
B5Vne
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
V596
var max
8.519
var min
8.599

About HD 85567

HD 85567 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 8.56 and has spectral type B5Vne.

Its spectrum reads B5Vne — 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 HD 85567 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 8.56, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 85567 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 85567 is a common variable star

HD 85567 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence 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.