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Trash star 10 EP

HD 169884

RA 277.7615° · Dec -63.0410° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
10 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 10

5 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A4V — 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.
  • 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 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Pavo.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 9.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.819
bv
0.145
constellation
Pav
dist ly
556.5803
luminosity
16.308
mag
7.98
name
HD 169884
spect
A4V

About HD 169884

HD 169884 is a trash star. It lies about 556.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pav, shines at apparent magnitude 7.98 and has spectral type A4V.

Its spectrum reads A4V — 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 169884 in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 7.98, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 169884 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 169884 is a trash star

HD 169884 scores 10 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-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.