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Common star 20 EP

HD 51544

RA 104.2921° · Dec -15.7433° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Bright giant +12
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0II/III — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 7.9 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 12.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.191
bv
0.258
constellation
CMa
dist ly
723.1841
luminosity
29.0804
mag
7.92
name
HD 51544
spect
A0II/III

About HD 51544

HD 51544 is a common star. It lies about 723.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 7.92 and has spectral type A0II/III.

Its spectrum reads A0II/III — 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 51544 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 7.92, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 51544 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 51544 is a common star

HD 51544 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-type star and Bright giant — 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.