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Common star 19 EP

HR 1661

RA 76.6531° · Dec -13.1226° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9.5/A0IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

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 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Lepus.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south 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. ≈ 6.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 578.7 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.762
bv
-0.03
constellation
Lep
dist ly
370.6319
luminosity
43.1718
mag
6.04
name
HR 1661
spect
B9.5/A0IV

About HR 1661

HR 1661 is a common star. It lies about 370.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lep, shines at apparent magnitude 6.04 and has spectral type B9.5/A0IV.

Its spectrum reads B9.5/A0IV — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HR 1661 in the constellation Lep. At apparent magnitude 6.04, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 1661 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 1661 is a common star

HR 1661 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, Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) 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.