Common star 15 EP

HD 139926

RA 235.4547° · Dec -26.1493° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges

15 pts · Common

Common 22 pts → Uncommon

Giant star +6
Star +3
On the zodiac +3
Orange K-type star +3

Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

Star · +3
On the zodiac · +3
Orange K-type star · +3
Giant star · +6

Trivia

Hard to believe

True brightness. It pours out about 2.2 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K2/K3III+.. — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Libra.
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 May — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

By the numbers

Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4680 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.

Properties

absmag: -11.02
bv: 1.028
constellation: Lib
luminosity: 2228435.1493
mag: 8.98
name: HD 139926
spect: K2/K3III+..

Nearby objects

About HD 139926

HD 139926 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Lib, shines at apparent magnitude 8.98 and has spectral type K2/K3III+...

Its spectrum reads K2/K3III+.. — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 139926 in the constellation Lib. At apparent magnitude 8.98, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 139926 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 139926 is a common star

HD 139926 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Orange K-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.