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Uncommon variable star 23 EP

HR 4854

RA 191.7596° · Dec 5.9504° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • On the zodiac +3
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0spe... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • 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 Virgo.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around April — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 15.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.814
bv
-0.013
constellation
Vir
dist ly
867.436
luminosity
184.3317
mag
6.31
name
HR 4854
spect
A0spe...
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
EP
var max
6.289
var min
6.329

About HR 4854

HR 4854 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 867.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 6.31 and has spectral type A0spe....

Its spectrum reads A0spe... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HR 4854 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 6.31, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4854 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 4854 is an uncommon variable star

HR 4854 scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, On the zodiac, White A-type star, Blue-white star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.