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Epic variable star 57 EP

HD 93206

RA 161.0955° · Dec -59.9933° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
57 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Supergiant +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 57

21 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B0Ib: — 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 supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.
  • 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 6.3 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 March — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-2.566
bv
-0.31
constellation
Car
dist ly
1953.03
luminosity
925.5502
mag
6.32
name
HD 93206
spect
B0Ib:
var amplitude
0.21
var designation
QZ
var max
6.245
var min
6.455

About HD 93206

HD 93206 is an epic variable star. It lies about 1,953 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 6.32 and has spectral type B0Ib:.

Its spectrum reads B0Ib: — 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 93206 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 6.32, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 93206 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 93206 is an epic variable star

HD 93206 scores 57 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 21 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, Blue-white star, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2), 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.