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Trash star 11 EP

HD 168240

RA 275.4368° · Dec -53.7354° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
11 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 11

4 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F2IV/V — 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.

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 8.7 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 10.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.509
bv
0.457
constellation
Tel
dist ly
572.2035
luminosity
8.6377
mag
8.73
name
HD 168240
spect
F2IV/V

About HD 168240

HD 168240 is a trash star. It lies about 572.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tel, shines at apparent magnitude 8.73 and has spectral type F2IV/V.

Its spectrum reads F2IV/V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 168240 in the constellation Tel. At apparent magnitude 8.73, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 168240 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 168240 is a trash star

HD 168240 scores 11 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, 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.