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Uncommon star 23 EP

129 Tau

RA 86.6896° · Dec 15.8225° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8IIIMNp... — 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 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 6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Taurus.
  • 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. ≈ 12.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.763
bv
-0.061
constellation
Tau
dist ly
734.5855
luminosity
175.8733
mag
6
name
129 Tau
spect
B8IIIMNp...

About 129 Tau

129 Tau is an uncommon star. It lies about 734.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tau, shines at apparent magnitude 6 and has spectral type B8IIIMNp....

Its spectrum reads B8IIIMNp... — 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 129 Tau in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 6, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 129 Tau 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 129 Tau is an uncommon star

129 Tau scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Giant 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.