← Back to dex
Rare star 38 EP

HD 51361

RA 104.1262° · Dec -13.0594° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9Ib/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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.

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 10.2 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. ≈ 19.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.557
bv
-0.04
constellation
CMa
dist ly
1116.9728
luminosity
8.2642
mag
10.23
name
HD 51361
spect
B9Ib/II

About HD 51361

HD 51361 is a rare star. It lies about 1,117 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 10.23 and has spectral type B9Ib/II.

Its spectrum reads B9Ib/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 51361 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 10.23, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 51361 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 51361 is a rare star

HD 51361 scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant 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.