← Back to dex
Common star 17 EP

GL GJ 3609C

RA 157.7638° · Dec -21.6463° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 3 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Deep red star +8
  • Binary star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Binary star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Not one star but two. It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 13.1 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Hydra.
  • 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 February — 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. ≈ 1.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 118.4 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
11.297
binary
yes
bv
1.57
constellation
Hya
dist ly
75.8502
luminosity
0.0026
mag
13.13
name
GL GJ 3609C

About GL GJ 3609C

GL GJ 3609C is a common star. It lies about 75.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hya and shines at apparent magnitude 13.13.

It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

How to see it

Look for GL GJ 3609C in the constellation Hya. At apparent magnitude 13.13, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL GJ 3609C 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 GL GJ 3609C is a common star

GL GJ 3609C scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Binary 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.