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Common star 20 EP

HD 173896

RA 283.9161° · Dec -74.6736° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 4.1 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 K5III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.3 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 July — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out deep orange-red (B−V 1.6) — one of the coolest surfaces a star can have while still fusing.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3690 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-11.71
bv
1.57
constellation
Pav
luminosity
4207266.2838
mag
8.29
name
HD 173896
spect
K5III

Nearby objects

About HD 173896

HD 173896 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Pav, shines at apparent magnitude 8.29 and has spectral type K5III.

Its spectrum reads K5III — 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 173896 in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 8.29, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 173896 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 173896 is a common star

HD 173896 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Orange K-type star, Giant star and Deep red 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.