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Rare star 42 EP

HR 4268

RA 163.1194° · Dec -79.5594° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
42 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 42

8 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K2II/III — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 6.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Chamaeleon.
  • 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 March — 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. ≈ 35.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.606
bv
1.46
constellation
Cha
dist ly
2025.8136
luminosity
960.2847
mag
6.36
name
HR 4268
spect
K2II/III

About HR 4268

HR 4268 is a rare star. It lies about 2,025.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cha, shines at apparent magnitude 6.36 and has spectral type K2II/III.

Its spectrum reads K2II/III — 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 4268 in the constellation Cha. At apparent magnitude 6.36, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4268 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 4268 is a rare star

HR 4268 scores 42 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Orange K-type star, Bright giant, Deep red 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.