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Rare star 35 EP

HD 165446

RA 271.7133° · Dec -21.5053° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F3II — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 7.9 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 40.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.339
bv
0.65
constellation
Sgr
dist ly
2329.6857
luminosity
298.951
mag
7.93
name
HD 165446
spect
F3II

About HD 165446

HD 165446 is a rare star. It lies about 2,329.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 7.93 and has spectral type F3II.

Its spectrum reads F3II — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 165446 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 7.93, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 165446 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 165446 is a rare star

HD 165446 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Toward the galactic centre, On the zodiac, Yellow-white F-type star and Bright giant — 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.