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Common star 19 EP

HD 170616

RA 277.0635° · Dec 44.1310° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A — 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 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Lyra.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north 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. ≈ 23.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.373
bv
-0.118
constellation
Lyr
dist ly
1320.4696
luminosity
61.7732
mag
8.41
name
HD 170616
spect
A

About HD 170616

HD 170616 is a common star. It lies about 1,320.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lyr, shines at apparent magnitude 8.41 and has spectral type A.

Its spectrum reads A — 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 170616 in the constellation Lyr. At apparent magnitude 8.41, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 170616 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 170616 is a common star

HD 170616 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type star and Blue-white 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.