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Uncommon star 32 EP

HD 5030

RA 12.6316° · Dec -73.4785° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0Ia: — 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 luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.

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 11.2 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Tucana.
  • 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 October — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 41.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.879
bv
0.117
constellation
Tuc
dist ly
2363.4493
luminosity
15.4312
mag
11.18
name
HD 5030
spect
A0Ia:

About HD 5030

HD 5030 is an uncommon star. It lies about 2,363.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tuc, shines at apparent magnitude 11.18 and has spectral type A0Ia:.

Its spectrum reads A0Ia: — 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 HD 5030 in the constellation Tuc. At apparent magnitude 11.18, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 5030 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 5030 is an uncommon star

HD 5030 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 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type star and Supergiant — 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.