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Common star 18 EP

HR 2850

RA 111.6695° · Dec -23.7126° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0IV — 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. 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 6.6 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. ≈ 13.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.228
bv
-0.002
constellation
CMa
dist ly
763.8313
luminosity
107.4484
mag
6.62
name
HR 2850
spect
A0IV

About HR 2850

HR 2850 is a common star. It lies about 763.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 6.62 and has spectral type A0IV.

Its spectrum reads A0IV — 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 HR 2850 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 6.62, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 2850 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 HR 2850 is a common star

HR 2850 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

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