← Back to dex
Common star 15 EP

8 Her

RA 242.1943° · Dec 17.2056° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0Vnn — 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 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 6.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 5.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.179
bv
-0.003
constellation
Her
dist ly
318.823
luminosity
29.4036
mag
6.13
name
8 Her
spect
A0Vnn

About 8 Her

8 Her is a common star. It lies about 318.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Her, shines at apparent magnitude 6.13 and has spectral type A0Vnn.

Its spectrum reads A0Vnn — 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 8 Her in the constellation Her. At apparent magnitude 6.13, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, 8 Her 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 8 Her is a common star

8 Her 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, White A-type star, Main-sequence star and Blue-white 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.