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Common star 20 EP

HIP 26551

RA 84.6901° · Dec -2.5997° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B0 — 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 6.8 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 798.2 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.834
bv
-0.18
constellation
Ori
dist ly
511.2163
luminosity
40.4017
mag
6.81
name
HIP 26551
spect
B0

About HIP 26551

HIP 26551 is a common star. It lies about 511.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 6.81 and has spectral type B0.

Its spectrum reads B0 — 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 HIP 26551 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 6.81, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 26551 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 HIP 26551 is a common star

HIP 26551 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 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 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.