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Common variable star 20 EP

HD 115034

RA 198.9638° · Dec -63.8843° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.6 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 B1V — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.
  • 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 8.8 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 April — 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.

Properties

absmag
-11.22
bv
0.084
constellation
Cen
luminosity
2679168.3248
mag
8.78
name
HD 115034
spect
B1V
var amplitude
0.12
var designation
V1166
var max
8.741
var min
8.861

About HD 115034

HD 115034 is a common variable star. It sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 8.78 and has spectral type B1V.

Its spectrum reads B1V — 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 115034 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 8.78, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 115034 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 115034 is a common variable star

HD 115034 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence 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.