← Back to dex
Uncommon star 26 EP

HD 42758

RA 93.2952° · Dec 19.0093° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8III — 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 7.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Orion.
  • 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. ≈ 14.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.404
bv
-0.066
constellation
Ori
dist ly
821.5517
luminosity
60.0344
mag
7.41
name
HD 42758
spect
B8III

About HD 42758

HD 42758 is an uncommon star. It lies about 821.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 7.41 and has spectral type B8III.

Its spectrum reads B8III — 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 42758 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 7.41, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 42758 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 42758 is an uncommon star

HD 42758 scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, In Orion's hunting ground, 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.