Uncommon variable star 24 EP

HD 103146

RA 178.1199° · Dec -61.5241° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges

24 pts · Uncommon

Uncommon 34 pts → Rare

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

Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 4.1 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 B1III:var — 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.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Centaurus.
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.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.

Properties

absmag: -11.69
bv: 0
constellation: Cen
luminosity: 4130475.0199
mag: 8.31
name: HD 103146
spect: B1III:var
var amplitude: 0.4
var designation: VZ
var max: 8.25
var min: 8.65

Nearby objects

About HD 103146

HD 103146 is an uncommon variable star. It sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 8.31 and has spectral type B1III:var.

Its spectrum reads B1III:var — 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 103146 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 8.31, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 103146 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 103146 is an uncommon variable star

HD 103146 scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, 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.