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Uncommon star 32 EP

HD 60196

RA 113.0495° · Dec -28.7344° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Supergiant +18
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.1 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1Ib/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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 9 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Puppis.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out blue-white (B−V -0) — the hallmark of a surface far hotter than the Sun's.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-10.99
bv
-0.001
constellation
Pup
luminosity
2167704.1048
mag
9.01
name
HD 60196
spect
B1Ib/II

About HD 60196

HD 60196 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 9.01 and has spectral type B1Ib/II.

Its spectrum reads B1Ib/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 60196 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 9.01, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 60196 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 60196 is an uncommon star

HD 60196 scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, 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.