About HIP 102681
HIP 102681 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Cap, shines at apparent magnitude 8.05 and has spectral type G5.
Its spectrum reads G5 — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Trash star 14 EP
HIP 102681
RA 312.1041° · Dec -18.2000° · star
Score breakdown
· 3 badgesTrash 15 pts → Common
- Sun-like G-type star +8
- Star +3
- On the zodiac +3
Total score 14
1 more point to reach Common.
Badges
- Star · +3
- On the zodiac · +3
- Sun-like G-type star · +8
Trivia
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 5.2 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 G5 — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 8.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Capricornus.
- 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 August — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow (B−V 0.7) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.
- Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.
By the numbers
- Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 5490 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Properties
- absmag
- -11.95
- bv
- 0.734
- constellation
- Cap
- luminosity
- 5248074.6025
- mag
- 8.05
- name
- HIP 102681
- spect
- G5
How to see it
Look for HIP 102681 in the constellation Cap. At apparent magnitude 8.05, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, HIP 102681 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 HIP 102681 is a trash star
HIP 102681 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, On the zodiac and Sun-like G-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.