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Uncommon star 29 EP

HD 63609

RA 115.0906° · Dec -77.9546° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • Sun-like G-type star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Sun-like G-type star · +8
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads G2II — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
  • 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 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Chamaeleon.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 17.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.816
bv
0.884
constellation
Cha
dist ly
1009.7708
luminosity
41.0771
mag
8.27
name
HD 63609
spect
G2II

About HD 63609

HD 63609 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,009.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cha, shines at apparent magnitude 8.27 and has spectral type G2II.

Its spectrum reads G2II — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 63609 in the constellation Cha. At apparent magnitude 8.27, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 63609 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 63609 is an uncommon star

HD 63609 scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Sun-like G-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.