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Common star 20 EP

HD 96968

RA 167.2470° · Dec -57.4198° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Bright giant +12
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A6II — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 7.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Carina.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow-white (B−V 0.4) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 7080 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-12.15
bv
0.363
constellation
Car
luminosity
6309573.4448
mag
7.85
name
HD 96968
spect
A6II

About HD 96968

HD 96968 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 7.85 and has spectral type A6II.

Its spectrum reads A6II — 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 HD 96968 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 7.85, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 96968 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 HD 96968 is a common star

HD 96968 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-type star and Bright giant — 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.