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Common star 18 EP

HR 4122

RA 157.7448° · Dec -7.6376° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K5III+... — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions 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 6.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Sextans.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. ≈ 20 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.511
bv
1.377
constellation
Sex
dist ly
1136.4322
luminosity
350.2676
mag
6.2
name
HR 4122
spect
K5III+...

Nearby objects

About HR 4122

HR 4122 is a common star. It lies about 1,136.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sex, shines at apparent magnitude 6.2 and has spectral type K5III+....

Its spectrum reads K5III+... — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HR 4122 in the constellation Sex. At apparent magnitude 6.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4122 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 4122 is a common star

HR 4122 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Orange K-type star and Giant star — 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.