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Trash star 6 EP

HD 142977

RA 239.0324° · Dec 40.1055° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
6 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 6

9 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Orange K-type star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.1 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 K0 — 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 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Hercules.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 0.9) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • 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 4910 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-10.96
bv
0.934
constellation
Her
luminosity
2108628.1499
mag
9.04
name
HD 142977
spect
K0

Nearby objects

About HD 142977

HD 142977 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Her, shines at apparent magnitude 9.04 and has spectral type K0.

Its spectrum reads K0 — 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 142977 in the constellation Her. At apparent magnitude 9.04, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 142977 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 142977 is a trash star

HD 142977 scores 6 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Orange K-type 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.