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Trash star 13 EP

HD 74461

RA 129.4836° · Dec -74.5739° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
13 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 13

2 more points to reach Common.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A6/A7IV/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 6.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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. ≈ 7.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 672.7 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.015
bv
0.265
constellation
Vol
dist ly
430.8534
luminosity
34.1979
mag
6.62
name
HD 74461
spect
A6/A7IV/V

About HD 74461

HD 74461 is a trash star. It lies about 430.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vol, shines at apparent magnitude 6.62 and has spectral type A6/A7IV/V.

Its spectrum reads A6/A7IV/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 HD 74461 in the constellation Vol. At apparent magnitude 6.62, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 74461 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 74461 is a trash star

HD 74461 scores 13 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, 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.