← Back to dex
Uncommon star 25 EP

Chi1Hya

RA 166.3330° · Dec -27.2936° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Binary star +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Binary star · +6
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Not one star but two. It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F3IV/V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 4.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Hydra.
  • 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.

Properties

absmag
1.741
binary
yes
bv
0.369
constellation
Hya
dist ly
141.01
luminosity
17.5227
mag
4.92
name
Chi1Hya
spect
F3IV/V

About Chi1Hya

Chi1Hya is an uncommon star. It lies about 141 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hya, shines at apparent magnitude 4.92 and has spectral type F3IV/V.

It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

How to see it

Look for Chi1Hya in the constellation Hya. At apparent magnitude 4.92, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Chi1Hya 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 Chi1Hya is an uncommon star

Chi1Hya 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, Binary star, Yellow-white F-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.