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Uncommon star 31 EP

HD 86288

RA 148.9673° · Dec -52.9791° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B5III — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions 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 7.8 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 February — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 54.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.063
bv
0.085
constellation
Vel
dist ly
3076.9433
luminosity
582.3713
mag
7.81
name
HD 86288
spect
B5III

About HD 86288

HD 86288 is an uncommon star. It lies about 3,076.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 7.81 and has spectral type B5III.

Its spectrum reads B5III — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 86288 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 7.81, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 86288 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 86288 is an uncommon star

HD 86288 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Giant 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.