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Uncommon star 22 EP

HD 164608

RA 270.8233° · Dec -31.1986° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.3 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 F0IV — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Sagittarius.
  • 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 yellow-white (B−V 0.5) — a shade brighter and crisper than our own Sun.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-11.09
bv
0.47
constellation
Sgr
luminosity
2376840.2866
mag
8.91
name
HD 164608
spect
F0IV

About HD 164608

HD 164608 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 8.91 and has spectral type F0IV.

Its spectrum reads F0IV — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 164608 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 8.91, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 164608 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 164608 is an uncommon star

HD 164608 scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Toward the galactic centre, On the zodiac, Yellow-white F-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.