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Common star 19 EP

HR 3991

RA 152.5245° · Dec -12.8159° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F2/F3IV/V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

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 Hydra.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 1.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 141.3 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
3.085
bv
0.368
constellation
Hya
dist ly
90.4734
luminosity
5.0816
mag
5.3
name
HR 3991
spect
F2/F3IV/V

About HR 3991

HR 3991 is a common star. It lies about 90.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hya, shines at apparent magnitude 5.3 and has spectral type F2/F3IV/V.

Its spectrum reads F2/F3IV/V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HR 3991 in the constellation Hya. At apparent magnitude 5.3, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 3991 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 3991 is a common star

HR 3991 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 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 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.