Rare star 41 EP

HD 71304

RA 126.2325° · Dec -44.3008° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges

41 pts · Rare

Rare 50 pts → Epic

Blazing O-type star +26
Bright giant +12
Star +3

Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

Star · +3
Blazing O-type star · +26
Bright giant · +12

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 4.2 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 O9II: — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 Vela.
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 yellow-white (B−V 0.5) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
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: -11.74
bv: 0.53
constellation: Vel
luminosity: 4325138.3104
mag: 8.26
name: HD 71304
spect: O9II:

Nearby objects

About HD 71304

HD 71304 is a rare star. It sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 8.26 and has spectral type O9II:.

Its spectrum reads O9II: — 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 71304 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 8.26, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 71304 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 71304 is a rare star

HD 71304 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Blazing O-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.