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Common star 20 EP

HD 196876

RA 310.5124° · Dec -48.7834° · 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 4.5 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 K4/K5III: — 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 8.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Indus.
  • 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 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.

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
-11.81
bv
1.569
constellation
Ind
luminosity
4613175.7456
mag
8.19
name
HD 196876
spect
K4/K5III:

Nearby objects

About HD 196876

HD 196876 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Ind, shines at apparent magnitude 8.19 and has spectral type K4/K5III:.

Its spectrum reads K4/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 196876 in the constellation Ind. At apparent magnitude 8.19, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 196876 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 196876 is a common star

HD 196876 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.