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Common star 17 EP

HD 161936

RA 268.9776° · Dec -73.7739° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Sun-like G-type star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Sun-like G-type star · +8
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads G6III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
  • 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 8.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Apus.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 17.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.206
bv
0.992
constellation
Aps
dist ly
991.3557
luminosity
28.6814
mag
8.62
name
HD 161936
spect
G6III

About HD 161936

HD 161936 is a common star. It lies about 991.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aps, shines at apparent magnitude 8.62 and has spectral type G6III.

Its spectrum reads G6III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 161936 in the constellation Aps. At apparent magnitude 8.62, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 161936 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 161936 is a common star

HD 161936 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Sun-like G-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.