← Back to dex
Common star 18 EP

HD 133215

RA 225.9381° · Dec -16.3470° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 1.2 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 B9III/IV — 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 a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 9.7 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Libra.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — 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) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • 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
-10.33
bv
0.028
constellation
Lib
luminosity
1180320.6357
mag
9.67
name
HD 133215
spect
B9III/IV

About HD 133215

HD 133215 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Lib, shines at apparent magnitude 9.67 and has spectral type B9III/IV.

Its spectrum reads B9III/IV — 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 133215 in the constellation Lib. At apparent magnitude 9.67, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 133215 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 133215 is a common star

HD 133215 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star and Giant 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.