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Trash star 14 EP

HD 166488

RA 273.2575° · Dec -45.6689° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
14 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 14

1 more point to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A9:+... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

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 Telescopium.
  • 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. ≈ 25.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.3 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.081
bv
0.526
constellation
Tel
dist ly
1449.5821
luminosity
80.8351
mag
8.32
name
HD 166488
spect
A9:+...

About HD 166488

HD 166488 is a trash star. It lies about 1,449.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tel, shines at apparent magnitude 8.32 and has spectral type A9:+....

Its spectrum reads A9:+... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 166488 in the constellation Tel. At apparent magnitude 8.32, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 166488 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 166488 is a trash star

HD 166488 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) and White A-type 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.