About HR 3496
HR 3496 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 5.71 and has spectral type F0Ib.
Its spectrum reads F0Ib — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Uncommon star 32 EP
HR 3496
RA 131.8285° · Dec -46.1554° · star
Score breakdown
· 4 badgesUncommon 34 pts → Rare
- Supergiant +18
- Naked-eye visible +8
- Star +3
- Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 32
2 more points to reach Rare.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Naked-eye visible · +8
- Yellow-white F-type star · +3
- Supergiant · +18
Trivia
What it actually is
- Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F0Ib — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
- Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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 0.6) — 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.
By the numbers
- Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 6150 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Properties
- absmag
- -14.29
- bv
- 0.554
- constellation
- Vel
- luminosity
- 45289757.9904
- mag
- 5.71
- name
- HR 3496
- spect
- F0Ib
Nearby objects
How to see it
Look for HR 3496 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 5.71, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.
Like any astronomical target, HR 3496 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 HR 3496 is an uncommon star
HR 3496 scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Yellow-white F-type star and Supergiant — 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.