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Common star 16 EP

HD 290006

RA 77.7758° · Dec -0.6616° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 483.1 thousand times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 10.6 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Orion.
  • 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 December — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow-white (B−V 0.5) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-9.38
bv
0.54
constellation
Ori
luminosity
492039.5357
mag
10.62
name
HD 290006
spect
A2V

About HD 290006

HD 290006 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 10.62 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 HD 290006 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 10.62, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 290006 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 290006 is a common star

HD 290006 scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, In Orion's hunting ground, 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.