← Back to dex
Rare variable star 35 EP

HR 4586

RA 180.0784° · Dec 80.8532° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 7 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M2III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • 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 6.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Camelopardalis.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • 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
-1.027
bv
1.61
constellation
Cam
dist ly
913.6021
luminosity
224.2849
mag
6.21
name
HR 4586
spect
M2III
var amplitude
0.21
var designation
FR
var max
6.107
var min
6.317

About HR 4586

HR 4586 is a rare variable star. It lies about 913.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cam, shines at apparent magnitude 6.21 and has spectral type M2III.

Its spectrum reads M2III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for HR 4586 in the constellation Cam. At apparent magnitude 6.21, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4586 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 4586 is a rare variable star

HR 4586 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Cool red M-type star, Giant star, Deep red 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.