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Trash star 14 EP

HR 4296

RA 165.0346° · Dec -51.8178° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
14 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 14

1 more point to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3III/IV — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • 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 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 March — 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. ≈ 3.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.22
bv
0.188
constellation
Vel
dist ly
199.2402
luminosity
11.272
mag
6.15
name
HR 4296
spect
A3III/IV

About HR 4296

HR 4296 is a trash star. It lies about 199.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 6.15 and has spectral type A3III/IV.

Its spectrum reads A3III/IV — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HR 4296 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 6.15, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4296 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 4296 is a trash star

HR 4296 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-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.