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Trash star 14 EP

HD 46049

RA 98.2493° · Dec 39.7846° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
14 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 14

1 more point to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2 — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

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 7.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Auriga.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 24.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.676
bv
0.063
constellation
Aur
dist ly
1376.1856
luminosity
162.3305
mag
7.45
name
HD 46049
spect
A2

About HD 46049

HD 46049 is a trash star. It lies about 1,376.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aur, shines at apparent magnitude 7.45 and has spectral type A2.

Its spectrum reads A2 — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 46049 in the constellation Aur. At apparent magnitude 7.45, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 46049 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 46049 is a trash star

HD 46049 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) and White A-type 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.