← Back to dex
Uncommon star 30 EP

Xi Pav

RA 275.8068° · Dec -61.4939° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M1III SB — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 4.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Pavo.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 8.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.437
bv
1.462
constellation
Pav
dist ly
468.6151
luminosity
327.19
mag
4.35
name
Xi Pav
spect
M1III SB

About Xi Pav

Xi Pav is an uncommon star. It lies about 468.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pav, shines at apparent magnitude 4.35 and has spectral type M1III SB.

Its spectrum reads M1III SB — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for Xi Pav in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 4.35, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Xi Pav 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 Xi Pav is an uncommon star

Xi Pav scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Cool red M-type star, Giant star and Deep red 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.