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Rare star 37 EP

HD 114886

RA 198.6850° · Dec -63.5811° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Blazing O-type star · +26
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O9:V — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

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 6.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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 April — 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. ≈ 26.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.4 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-1.488
bv
0.112
constellation
Cen
dist ly
1531.2489
luminosity
342.9257
mag
6.87
name
HD 114886
spect
O9:V

About HD 114886

HD 114886 is a rare star. It lies about 1,531.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 6.87 and has spectral type O9:V.

Its spectrum reads O9:V — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for HD 114886 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 6.87, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 114886 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 114886 is a rare star

HD 114886 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Blazing O-type star and Main-sequence 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.