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Uncommon star 27 EP

HD 106521

RA 183.8388° · Dec -61.0298° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
27 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 27

7 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Under the Southern Cross · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A9IV — 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 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 9 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 22.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.968
bv
0.495
constellation
Cru
dist ly
1299.4264
luminosity
35.7108
mag
8.97
name
HD 106521
spect
A9IV

About HD 106521

HD 106521 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,299.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 8.97 and has spectral type A9IV.

Its spectrum reads A9IV — 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 106521 in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 8.97, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 106521 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 106521 is an uncommon star

HD 106521 scores 27 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Under the Southern Cross, White A-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.