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Trash star 13 EP

HD 50461

RA 103.2833° · Dec -7.7655° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
13 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 13

2 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0p — 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 7.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Monoceros.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. ≈ 17.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.5 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.429
bv
-0.064
constellation
Mon
dist ly
976.515
luminosity
58.6678
mag
7.81
name
HD 50461
spect
A0p

About HD 50461

HD 50461 is a trash star. It lies about 976.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 7.81 and has spectral type A0p.

Its spectrum reads A0p — 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 50461 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 7.81, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 50461 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 50461 is a trash star

HD 50461 scores 13 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-type 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.