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Epic star 53 EP

HD 61347

RA 114.5671° · Dec -13.8503° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
53 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Blazing O-type star · +26
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O9.5Iab — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant. Drop it where the Sun is and its surface would engulf the inner planets.

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 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 35.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.579
bv
0.163
constellation
Pup
dist ly
2038.475
luminosity
148.4568
mag
8.4
name
HD 61347
spect
O9.5Iab

About HD 61347

HD 61347 is an epic star. It lies about 2,038.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 8.4 and has spectral type O9.5Iab.

Its spectrum reads O9.5Iab — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for HD 61347 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 8.4, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 61347 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 61347 is an epic star

HD 61347 scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Blazing O-type star and Supergiant — 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.