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Trash star 8 EP

HD 165538

RA 272.5366° · Dec -58.9683° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
8 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 8

7 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F5V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Pavo.
  • 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. ≈ 8.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.374
bv
0.45
constellation
Pav
dist ly
492.6828
luminosity
9.7814
mag
8.27
name
HD 165538
spect
F5V

About HD 165538

HD 165538 is a trash star. It lies about 492.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pav, shines at apparent magnitude 8.27 and has spectral type F5V.

Its spectrum reads F5V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 165538 in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 8.27, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 165538 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 165538 is a trash star

HD 165538 scores 8 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Yellow-white F-type star and Main-sequence 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.