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Uncommon star 30 EP

Eta2Dor

RA 92.8125° · Dec -65.5894° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M2.5III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • 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 5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Dorado.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 11.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.456
bv
1.599
constellation
Dor
dist ly
640.7781
luminosity
332.9661
mag
5.01
name
Eta2Dor
spect
M2.5III

About Eta2Dor

Eta2Dor is an uncommon star. It lies about 640.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dor, shines at apparent magnitude 5.01 and has spectral type M2.5III.

Its spectrum reads M2.5III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for Eta2Dor in the constellation Dor. At apparent magnitude 5.01, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Eta2Dor 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 Eta2Dor is an uncommon star

Eta2Dor scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Cool red M-type star, Giant star and Deep red 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.