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Common star 20 EP

HD 124228

RA 213.3428° · Dec -39.9786° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2/A3III — 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.

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 7.9 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. ≈ 27.4 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
-0.539
bv
0.173
constellation
Cen
dist ly
1560.555
luminosity
143.0869
mag
7.86
name
HD 124228
spect
A2/A3III

About HD 124228

HD 124228 is a common star. It lies about 1,560.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 7.86 and has spectral type A2/A3III.

Its spectrum reads A2/A3III — 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 124228 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 7.86, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 124228 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 124228 is a common star

HD 124228 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type star and Giant 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.