Common star 19 EP

HD 48532

RA 101.1605° · Dec 19.9876° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges

19 pts · Common

Common 22 pts → Uncommon

Hot blue B-type star +6
Blue-white star +5
Star +3
On the zodiac +3
Main-sequence star +2

Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

Star · +3
On the zodiac · +3
Hot blue B-type star · +6
Main-sequence star · +2
Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 2.9 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 B2V: — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Gemini.
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.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out blue-white (B−V -0.1) — the hallmark of a surface far hotter than the Sun's.
Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag: -11.32
bv: -0.08
constellation: Gem
luminosity: 2937649.652
mag: 8.68
name: HD 48532
spect: B2V:

Nearby objects

About HD 48532

HD 48532 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Gem, shines at apparent magnitude 8.68 and has spectral type B2V:.

Its spectrum reads B2V: — 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 48532 in the constellation Gem. At apparent magnitude 8.68, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 48532 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 48532 is a common star

HD 48532 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence 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.