About HIP 561
HIP 561 is a trash star. It lies about 746.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep and shines at apparent magnitude 11.79.
Its colour puts the surface at roughly 5570 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Trash star 7 EP
HIP 561
RA 1.7096° · Dec 68.1671° · star
Score breakdown
· 2 badgesTrash 15 pts → Common
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
- Star +3
Total score 7
8 more points to reach Common.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
Trivia
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 11.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Cepheus.
- Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around September — 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. ≈ 13.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
- Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
- At 10% light speed. ≈ 7464 years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Properties
- absmag
- 4.992
- bv
- 0.71
- constellation
- Cep
- dist ly
- 746.3526
- luminosity
- 0.8774
- mag
- 11.79
- name
- HIP 561
How to see it
Look for HIP 561 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 11.79, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HIP 561 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 561 is a trash star
HIP 561 scores 7 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Never sets (northern circumpolar) — 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.