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Uncommon star 22 EP

HR 4311

RA 166.1301° · Dec -47.6791° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A8III/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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.956
bv
0.256
constellation
Vel
dist ly
285.8509
luminosity
36.1077
mag
5.67
name
HR 4311
spect
A8III/IV

About HR 4311

HR 4311 is an uncommon star. It lies about 285.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 5.67 and has spectral type A8III/IV.

Its spectrum reads A8III/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 4311 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 5.67, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4311 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 4311 is an uncommon star

HR 4311 scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, 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.