← Back to dex
Rare variable star 35 EP

HD 116119

RA 200.7318° · Dec -62.0122° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Variable star +5
  • White A-type star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0Ia — 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.
  • 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 7.9 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 yellow (B−V 0.6) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.
  • 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
-12.08
bv
0.645
constellation
Cen
luminosity
5915616.3418
mag
7.92
name
HD 116119
spect
A0Ia
var amplitude
0.08
var designation
V965
var max
7.878
var min
7.958

About HD 116119

HD 116119 is a rare variable star. It sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 7.92 and has spectral type A0Ia.

Its spectrum reads A0Ia — 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 HD 116119 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 7.92, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 116119 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 116119 is a rare variable star

HD 116119 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 5 science badges — Variable star, White A-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.