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Common star 21 EP

Bet Pav

RA 311.2397° · Dec -66.2032° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A5IV — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 3.4 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 August — 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. ≈ 2.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.334
bv
0.163
constellation
Pav
dist ly
135.1101
luminosity
64.0324
mag
3.42
name
Bet Pav
spect
A5IV

About Bet Pav

Bet Pav is a common star. It lies about 135.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pav, shines at apparent magnitude 3.42 and has spectral type A5IV.

Its spectrum reads A5IV — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for Bet Pav in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 3.42, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Bet 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 Bet Pav is a common star

Bet Pav scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, White A-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.