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Rare star 38 EP

1 Pup

RA 115.8849° · Dec -28.4109° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K5III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 4.6 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 13.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.243
bv
1.632
constellation
Pup
dist ly
772.8814
luminosity
687.3849
mag
4.63
name
1 Pup
spect
K5III

About 1 Pup

1 Pup is a rare star. It lies about 772.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 4.63 and has spectral type K5III.

Its spectrum reads K5III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for 1 Pup in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 4.63, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 1 Pup 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 1 Pup is a rare star

1 Pup scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Orange K-type star, Giant star, Deep red star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.