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Trash star 11 EP

HD 201461

RA 317.5158° · Dec -14.2689° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
11 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 11

4 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F2/F3V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

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 8.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Aquarius.
  • 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.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 9.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 866.1 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
2.417
bv
0.409
constellation
Aqr
dist ly
554.687
luminosity
9.4016
mag
8.57
name
HD 201461
spect
F2/F3V

About HD 201461

HD 201461 is a trash star. It lies about 554.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aqr, shines at apparent magnitude 8.57 and has spectral type F2/F3V.

Its spectrum reads F2/F3V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 201461 in the constellation Aqr. At apparent magnitude 8.57, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 201461 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 201461 is a trash star

HD 201461 scores 11 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Yellow-white F-type star and Main-sequence 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.