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Uncommon variable star 30 EP

HD 90578

RA 156.5008° · Dec -57.8269° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1.5III — 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 9.3 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
0.952
bv
0.095
constellation
Car
dist ly
1524.0934
luminosity
36.241
mag
9.3
name
HD 90578
spect
B1.5III
var amplitude
0.12
var designation
V503
var max
9.223
var min
9.343

About HD 90578

HD 90578 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,524.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 9.3 and has spectral type B1.5III.

Its spectrum reads B1.5III — 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 90578 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 9.3, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 90578 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 90578 is an uncommon variable star

HD 90578 scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Giant 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.