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Trash star 8 EP

HD 161817

RA 266.6693° · Dec 25.7492° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
8 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 8

7 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads sdA2 — 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 subdwarf: an old, metal-poor star from the galaxy's early days, a little smaller and fainter than a main-sequence star of the same colour.

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 7 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 June — 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. ≈ 10.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.664
bv
0.166
constellation
Her
dist ly
595.1753
luminosity
47.2498
mag
6.97
name
HD 161817
spect
sdA2

Nearby objects

About HD 161817

HD 161817 is a trash star. It lies about 595.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Her, shines at apparent magnitude 6.97 and has spectral type sdA2.

Its spectrum reads sdA2 — 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 HD 161817 in the constellation Her. At apparent magnitude 6.97, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 161817 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 161817 is a trash star

HD 161817 scores 8 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and White A-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.