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Common star 20 EP

HD 39683

RA 88.6197° · Dec 8.0543° · 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 B9 — 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 7.2 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.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 9.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 872 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.982
bv
-0.028
constellation
Ori
dist ly
558.4864
luminosity
35.2533
mag
7.15
name
HD 39683
spect
B9

About HD 39683

HD 39683 is a common star. It lies about 558.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 7.15 and has spectral type B9.

Its spectrum reads B9 — 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 39683 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 7.15, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 39683 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 39683 is a common star

HD 39683 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.