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Rare variable star 44 EP

HR 4653

RA 183.5705° · Dec -64.4085° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
44 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 44

6 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Under the Southern Cross · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1.5Ia — 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 luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.
  • 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 6.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Crux.
  • 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 0.1) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-13.8
bv
0.075
constellation
Cru
luminosity
28840315.0313
mag
6.2
name
HR 4653
spect
B1.5Ia
var amplitude
0.07
var designation
DL
var max
6.17
var min
6.24

About HR 4653

HR 4653 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 6.2 and has spectral type B1.5Ia.

Its spectrum reads B1.5Ia — 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 4653 in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 6.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4653 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 4653 is a rare variable star

HR 4653 scores 44 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Under the Southern Cross, Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant, 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.