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Common star 19 EP

HR 6881

RA 275.8007° · Dec -12.0148° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B5V — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Scutum.
  • 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. ≈ 10.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.669
bv
0.006
constellation
Sct
dist ly
615.3885
luminosity
161.2872
mag
5.71
name
HR 6881
spect
B5V

About HR 6881

HR 6881 is a common star. It lies about 615.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sct, shines at apparent magnitude 5.71 and has spectral type B5V.

Its spectrum reads B5V — 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 6881 in the constellation Sct. At apparent magnitude 5.71, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 6881 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 6881 is a common star

HR 6881 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

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