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Uncommon star 32 EP

HD 163451

RA 269.3062° · Dec -23.1481° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 1.3 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 B3II/III — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 9.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Sagittarius.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow-white (B−V 0.3) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
  • 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
-10.46
bv
0.341
constellation
Sgr
luminosity
1330454.418
mag
9.54
name
HD 163451
spect
B3II/III

About HD 163451

HD 163451 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 9.54 and has spectral type B3II/III.

Its spectrum reads B3II/III — 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 163451 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 9.54, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 163451 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 163451 is an uncommon star

HD 163451 scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Toward the galactic centre, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star and Bright giant — 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.