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Common star 16 EP

HD 104080

RA 179.7945° · Dec -45.8322° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8/B9V — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

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 6.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Centaurus.
  • 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. ≈ 7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 620.3 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.932
bv
-0.081
constellation
Cen
dist ly
397.2668
luminosity
36.9148
mag
6.36
name
HD 104080
spect
B8/B9V

About HD 104080

HD 104080 is a common star. It lies about 397.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 6.36 and has spectral type B8/B9V.

Its spectrum reads B8/B9V — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 104080 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 6.36, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 104080 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 104080 is a common star

HD 104080 scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence star and Blue-white 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.