Common star 17 EP

HD 36826

RA 83.5734° · Dec -2.3854° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges

17 pts · Common

Common 22 pts → Uncommon

In Orion's hunting ground +6
Hot blue B-type star +6
Star +3
Main-sequence star +2

Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

Star · +3
In Orion's hunting ground · +6
Hot blue B-type star · +6
Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 4.5 million 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 B5Vn — 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.
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 8.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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 brilliant white (B−V 0) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
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: -11.8
bv: 0.002
constellation: Ori
luminosity: 4570881.8961
mag: 8.2
name: HD 36826
spect: B5Vn

Nearby objects

About HD 36826

HD 36826 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 8.2 and has spectral type B5Vn.

Its spectrum reads B5Vn — 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 HD 36826 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 8.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 36826 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 36826 is a common star

HD 36826 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

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