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Uncommon star 22 EP

HD 138503

RA 233.3288° · Dec -25.0269° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.1 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 B2/3IV:n: — 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 9.1 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 blue-white (B−V -0) — the hallmark of a surface far hotter than the Sun's.
  • 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.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 10710 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-10.95
bv
-0.044
constellation
Lib
luminosity
2089296.1309
mag
9.05
name
HD 138503
spect
B2/3IV:n:

About HD 138503

HD 138503 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Lib, shines at apparent magnitude 9.05 and has spectral type B2/3IV:n:.

Its spectrum reads B2/3IV:n: — 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 138503 in the constellation Lib. At apparent magnitude 9.05, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 138503 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 138503 is an uncommon star

HD 138503 scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) and Blue-white 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.