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Uncommon variable star 26 EP

HD 312137

RA 193.4223° · Dec -61.2159° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3 — 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.
  • 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 10 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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 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. ≈ 13.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
3.094
bv
0.435
constellation
Cru
dist ly
791.6406
luminosity
5.0396
mag
10.02
name
HD 312137
spect
B3
var amplitude
0.22
var designation
DT
var max
9.911
var min
10.131

About HD 312137

HD 312137 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 791.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 10.02 and has spectral type B3.

Its spectrum reads B3 — 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 312137 in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 10.02, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 312137 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 312137 is an uncommon variable star

HD 312137 scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Under the Southern Cross, Hot blue B-type 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.