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Epic star 53 EP

HD 123008

RA 211.8777° · Dec -64.4691° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
53 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Blazing O-type star · +26
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O9.5Ia — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.

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 8.8 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. ≈ 53.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.033
bv
0.37
constellation
Cen
dist ly
3048.1868
luminosity
225.5278
mag
8.82
name
HD 123008
spect
O9.5Ia

About HD 123008

HD 123008 is an epic star. It lies about 3,048.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 8.82 and has spectral type O9.5Ia.

Its spectrum reads O9.5Ia — 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 123008 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 8.82, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 123008 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 123008 is an epic star

HD 123008 scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 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 Supergiant — 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.