← Back to dex
Trash star 12 EP

HD 169643

RA 277.0683° · Dec -49.5192° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 3 badges
12 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 12

3 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 3.3 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K2/K3III: — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.6 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.2) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4250 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.

Properties

absmag
-11.45
bv
1.232
constellation
Tel
luminosity
3311311.2148
mag
8.55
name
HD 169643
spect
K2/K3III:

Nearby objects

About HD 169643

HD 169643 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Tel, shines at apparent magnitude 8.55 and has spectral type K2/K3III:.

Its spectrum reads K2/K3III: — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 169643 in the constellation Tel. At apparent magnitude 8.55, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 169643 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 169643 is a trash star

HD 169643 scores 12 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Orange K-type star and Giant 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.