About HD 48733
HD 48733 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Vol, shines at apparent magnitude 9.41 and has spectral type C+.
Its spectrum reads C+ — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
Uncommon star 27 EP
HD 48733
RA 99.5538° · Dec -70.0943° · star
Score breakdown
· 2 badgesUncommon 34 pts → Rare
- Carbon star (sooty red) +24
- Star +3
Total score 27
7 more points to reach Rare.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
Trivia
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 1.5 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.
What it actually is
- Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C+ — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 9.4 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Volans.
- 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.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.4) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.
By the numbers
- Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4020 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
What's in a name
- Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.
Properties
- absmag
- -10.59
- bv
- 1.36
- constellation
- Vol
- luminosity
- 1499684.8355
- mag
- 9.41
- name
- HD 48733
- spect
- C+
How to see it
Look for HD 48733 in the constellation Vol. At apparent magnitude 9.41, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HD 48733 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 48733 is an uncommon star
HD 48733 scores 27 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Carbon star (sooty red) — 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.