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Uncommon star 24 EP

HR 4712

RA 185.8976° · Dec -35.4127° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
24 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • 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 5.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 7.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 693.8 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.352
bv
-0.066
constellation
Cen
dist ly
444.3543
luminosity
120.4481
mag
5.32
name
HR 4712
spect
B8/B9V

About HR 4712

HR 4712 is an uncommon star. It lies about 444.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 5.32 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 HR 4712 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 5.32, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 4712 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 4712 is an uncommon star

HR 4712 scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, 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.