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Uncommon star 25 EP

59 Leo

RA 165.1867° · Dec 6.1014° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A5III — 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 5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Leo.
  • 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 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. ≈ 2.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.649
bv
0.166
constellation
Leo
dist ly
151.2082
luminosity
19.0722
mag
4.98
name
59 Leo
spect
A5III

About 59 Leo

59 Leo is an uncommon star. It lies about 151.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Leo, shines at apparent magnitude 4.98 and has spectral type A5III.

Its spectrum reads A5III — 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 59 Leo in the constellation Leo. At apparent magnitude 4.98, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 59 Leo 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 59 Leo is an uncommon star

59 Leo scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, On the zodiac, 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.