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Epic variable star 50 EP

HR 4206

RA 160.4649° · Dec -79.7833° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
50 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Fades out of naked-eye view +16
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 50

28 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • Fades out of naked-eye view · +16
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B5IV — 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 subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.
  • 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 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Chamaeleon.
  • 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 March — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
-1.297
bv
-0.071
constellation
Cha
dist ly
926.5795
luminosity
287.6074
mag
5.97
name
HR 4206
spect
B5IV
var amplitude
0.05
var designation
DR
var max
5.957
var min
6.007

About HR 4206

HR 4206 is an epic variable star. It lies about 926.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cha, shines at apparent magnitude 5.97 and has spectral type B5IV.

Its spectrum reads B5IV — 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 4206 in the constellation Cha. At apparent magnitude 5.97, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4206 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 4206 is an epic variable star

HR 4206 scores 50 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 28 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Naked-eye visible, Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence), Blue-white star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag), Fades out of naked-eye view 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.