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Common star 18 EP

Nu Hor

RA 42.2559° · Dec -62.8065° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2V — 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 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 5.2 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Horologium.
  • 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 November — 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. ≈ 2.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.736
bv
0.101
constellation
Hor
dist ly
164.5591
luminosity
17.6035
mag
5.25
name
Nu Hor
spect
A2V

About Nu Hor

Nu Hor is a common star. It lies about 164.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hor, shines at apparent magnitude 5.25 and has spectral type A2V.

Its spectrum reads A2V — 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 Nu Hor in the constellation Hor. At apparent magnitude 5.25, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Nu Hor 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 Nu Hor is a common star

Nu Hor scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, White A-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.