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Trash star 8 EP

HD 173609

RA 281.4229° · Dec 15.7254° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
8 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 8

7 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2 — 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 6.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Hercules.
  • 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 July — 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. ≈ 6.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 578.1 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.415
bv
0.204
constellation
Her
dist ly
370.2112
luminosity
23.6592
mag
6.69
name
HD 173609
spect
A2

About HD 173609

HD 173609 is a trash star. It lies about 370.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Her, shines at apparent magnitude 6.69 and has spectral type A2.

Its spectrum reads A2 — 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 173609 in the constellation Her. At apparent magnitude 6.69, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 173609 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 173609 is a trash star

HD 173609 scores 8 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star 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.