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Common star 16 EP

HR 6490

RA 261.7304° · Dec -25.9435° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9.5/A0V — 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.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 6.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Ophiuchus.
  • 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 June — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 6.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 617.3 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.002
bv
-0.055
constellation
Oph
dist ly
395.3405
luminosity
34.6099
mag
6.42
name
HR 6490
spect
B9.5/A0V

About HR 6490

HR 6490 is a common star. It lies about 395.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Oph, shines at apparent magnitude 6.42 and has spectral type B9.5/A0V.

Its spectrum reads B9.5/A0V — 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 HR 6490 in the constellation Oph. At apparent magnitude 6.42, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 6490 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 HR 6490 is a common star

HR 6490 scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence star 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.