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Rare star 47 EP

HR 4499

RA 175.2235° · Dec -62.0901° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
47 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Sun-like G-type star +8
  • Star +3
Total score 47

3 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Sun-like G-type star · +8
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads G3Ib — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.

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 Centaurus.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 15.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.247
bv
1.111
constellation
Cen
dist ly
888.7086
luminosity
689.922
mag
4.93
name
HR 4499
spect
G3Ib

About HR 4499

HR 4499 is a rare star. It lies about 888.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 4.93 and has spectral type G3Ib.

Its spectrum reads G3Ib — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.

How to see it

Look for HR 4499 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 4.93, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4499 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 4499 is a rare star

HR 4499 scores 47 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Sun-like G-type star, Supergiant and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.