← Back to dex
Rare star 40 EP

HD 104172

RA 179.9537° · Dec -62.8316° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
40 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 40

10 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Under the Southern Cross · +8
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K4/K5Ib: — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 7.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Crux.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out deep orange-red (B−V 1.8) — one of the coolest surfaces a star can have while still fusing.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3370 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.

Properties

absmag
-12.4
bv
1.816
constellation
Cru
luminosity
7943282.3472
mag
7.6
name
HD 104172
spect
K4/K5Ib:

About HD 104172

HD 104172 is a rare star. It sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 7.6 and has spectral type K4/K5Ib:.

Its spectrum reads K4/K5Ib: — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 104172 in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 7.6, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 104172 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 104172 is a rare star

HD 104172 scores 40 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Under the Southern Cross, Orange K-type star, Supergiant and Deep red 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.