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Uncommon star 22 EP

HR 1550

RA 73.1990° · Dec 42.5866° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3III — 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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Auriga.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — 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 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.033
bv
0.115
constellation
Aur
dist ly
452.9945
luminosity
89.7842
mag
5.68
name
HR 1550
spect
A3III

About HR 1550

HR 1550 is an uncommon star. It lies about 453 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aur, shines at apparent magnitude 5.68 and has spectral type A3III.

Its spectrum reads A3III — 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 1550 in the constellation Aur. At apparent magnitude 5.68, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 1550 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 1550 is an uncommon star

HR 1550 scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

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