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Uncommon star 25 EP

HD 316600

RA 268.0488° · Dec -30.1517° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Deep red star +8
  • Red dwarf +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Red dwarf · +6

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.8 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 M2 — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Scorpius.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out deep orange-red (B−V 2.1) — one of the coolest surfaces a star can have while still fusing.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3080 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
-11.29
bv
2.093
constellation
Sco
luminosity
2857590.5434
mag
8.71
name
HD 316600
spect
M2

About HD 316600

HD 316600 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 8.71 and has spectral type M2.

Its spectrum reads M2 — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for HD 316600 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 8.71, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 316600 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 316600 is an uncommon star

HD 316600 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Cool red M-type star, Deep red star and Red dwarf — 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.