← Back to dex
Rare star 35 EP

HR 5039

RA 200.7608° · Dec -48.5628° · star

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

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B6IV — 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.
  • 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 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 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. ≈ 37.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.692
bv
-0.077
constellation
Cen
dist ly
2117.8959
luminosity
1039.4414
mag
6.37
name
HR 5039
spect
B6IV

About HR 5039

HR 5039 is a rare star. It lies about 2,117.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 6.37 and has spectral type B6IV.

Its spectrum reads B6IV — 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 5039 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 6.37, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 5039 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 5039 is a rare star

HR 5039 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence), Blue-white star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.