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Common star 21 EP

Alp Pic

RA 102.0479° · Dec -61.9414° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A7IV — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 3.2 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Pictor.
  • 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 January — 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. ≈ 1.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.883
bv
0.225
constellation
Pic
dist ly
96.5529
luminosity
38.6189
mag
3.24
name
Alp Pic
spect
A7IV

About Alp Pic

Alp Pic is a common star. It lies about 96.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pic, shines at apparent magnitude 3.24 and has spectral type A7IV.

Its spectrum reads A7IV — 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 Alp Pic in the constellation Pic. At apparent magnitude 3.24, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Alp Pic 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 Alp Pic is a common star

Alp Pic scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, White A-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.