About HD 218408
HD 218408 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Psc, shines at apparent magnitude 9 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
HD 218408
RA 346.9307° · Dec 6.6047° · 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 2.1 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 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 9 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Pisces.
- Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around September — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.1) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.
By the numbers
- Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4610 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
- bv
- 1.055
- constellation
- Psc
- luminosity
- 2187761.6239
- mag
- 9
- name
- HD 218408
- spect
- G5...
How to see it
Look for HD 218408 in the constellation Psc. At apparent magnitude 9, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, HD 218408 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 218408 is a trash star
HD 218408 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.