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Common star 20 EP

HR 5403

RA 217.1813° · Dec -59.1975° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Bright giant +12
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0II/III — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 6.5 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.1) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 8920 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-13.54
bv
0.111
constellation
Cen
luminosity
22698648.5188
mag
6.46
name
HR 5403
spect
A0II/III

About HR 5403

HR 5403 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 6.46 and has spectral type A0II/III.

Its spectrum reads A0II/III — 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 HR 5403 in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 6.46, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 5403 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 5403 is a common star

HR 5403 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 3 science badges — Star, White A-type star and Bright giant — 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.