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Common star 19 EP

HR 444

RA 23.2647° · Dec -9.0147° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0III — 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 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 6.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cetus.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 6.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.262
bv
-0.04
constellation
Cet
dist ly
381.0233
luminosity
27.2396
mag
6.6
name
HR 444
spect
A0III

About HR 444

HR 444 is a common star. It lies about 381 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cet, shines at apparent magnitude 6.6 and has spectral type A0III.

Its spectrum reads A0III — 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 HR 444 in the constellation Cet. At apparent magnitude 6.6, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 444 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 444 is a common star

HR 444 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, White A-type star, Giant star and Blue-white 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.