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Rare star 35 EP

HD 187861

RA 299.1124° · Dec -65.3689° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Carbon star (sooty red) +24
  • Deep red star +8
  • Star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Carbon star (sooty red) · +24
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads C... — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

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 9.2 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 17.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.809
bv
1.5
constellation
Pav
dist ly
994.3779
luminosity
16.4589
mag
9.23
name
HD 187861
spect
C...

About HD 187861

HD 187861 is a rare star. It lies about 994.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pav, shines at apparent magnitude 9.23 and has spectral type C....

Its spectrum reads C... — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HD 187861 in the constellation Pav. At apparent magnitude 9.23, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 187861 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 187861 is a rare star

HD 187861 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Carbon star (sooty red) 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.