← Back to dex
Uncommon star 33 EP

HD 50091

RA 102.7598° · Dec -13.2318° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 4 badges
33 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3:Ib/II — 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.

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 8.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Canis Major.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 47 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 4.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-1.068
bv
0.082
constellation
CMa
dist ly
2673.4097
luminosity
232.9164
mag
8.5
name
HD 50091
spect
B3:Ib/II

About HD 50091

HD 50091 is an uncommon star. It lies about 2,673.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.5 and has spectral type B3:Ib/II.

Its spectrum reads B3:Ib/II — 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 50091 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 8.5, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 50091 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 50091 is an uncommon star

HD 50091 scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star and Supergiant — 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.