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Trash star 14 EP

HD 161516

RA 267.0720° · Dec -47.2551° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
14 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 14

1 more point to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2III/IV — 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 giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 7.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Ara.
  • 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 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. ≈ 8.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.317
bv
0.147
constellation
Ara
dist ly
469.9654
luminosity
25.8941
mag
7.11
name
HD 161516
spect
A2III/IV

About HD 161516

HD 161516 is a trash star. It lies about 470 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ara, shines at apparent magnitude 7.11 and has spectral type A2III/IV.

Its spectrum reads A2III/IV — 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 161516 in the constellation Ara. At apparent magnitude 7.11, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 161516 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 161516 is a trash star

HD 161516 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-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.