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Common star 21 EP

Eta Vol

RA 125.5188° · Dec -73.4000° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0/A1IV/V — 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.

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 5.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Volans.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 6.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 594.9 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.058
bv
0.014
constellation
Vol
dist ly
381.0233
luminosity
91.8756
mag
5.28
name
Eta Vol
spect
A0/A1IV/V

About Eta Vol

Eta Vol is a common star. It lies about 381 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vol, shines at apparent magnitude 5.28 and has spectral type A0/A1IV/V.

Its spectrum reads A0/A1IV/V — 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 Eta Vol in the constellation Vol. At apparent magnitude 5.28, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Eta Vol 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 Eta Vol is a common star

Eta Vol scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

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