Romano's Star
Luminous blue variable (post-LBV) · GR 290
One of the most luminous stars in M33
One of the most luminous stars in the Triangulum Galaxy, caught mid-transformation. Romano's Star is a luminous blue variable shedding its outer layers on its way to becoming a Wolf-Rayet star, brightening and dimming as it goes.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
1.0 million ×
as bright as the Sun
33,000 K
surface · blue
27 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
2.7 million ly
from Earth
18.0
apparent magnitude
Faint: large telescope needed10"+ (250 mm) telescope, dark sky · apparent magnitude 18.0
It pours out about 1.0 million times the Sun’s light. Its light has been travelling 2.7 million years to reach us, so you see Romano's Star as it was 2.7 million years ago.
Source · Polcaro et al. 2016, AJ 151, 149
It lives in
Triangulum Galaxy
Spiral galaxy, 2.7 million ly away.
Other notable stars in the Triangulum
Stars of similar brightness
S DoradusLuminous blue variable1.0 million ×B324Yellow hypergiant870,964 ×Melnick 34Wolf-Rayet binary (WN5h + WN5h)2.0 million ×HD 269810O-type giant (O2 III)2.2 million ×HD 5980Wolf-Rayet + blue-variable system2.2 million ×VFTS 682Wolf-Rayet star (WN5h)3.2 million ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→