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Common star 16 EP

18Tau5Ser

RA 234.1218° · Dec 16.1191° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F3V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 5.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Serpens.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.348
bv
0.354
constellation
Ser
dist ly
169.7844
luminosity
10.0184
mag
5.93
name
18Tau5Ser
spect
F3V

About 18Tau5Ser

18Tau5Ser is a common star. It lies about 169.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ser, shines at apparent magnitude 5.93 and has spectral type F3V.

Its spectrum reads F3V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for 18Tau5Ser in the constellation Ser. At apparent magnitude 5.93, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 18Tau5Ser 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 18Tau5Ser is a common star

18Tau5Ser scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Yellow-white F-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.