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Common star 16 EP

The Scl

RA 2.9333° · Dec -35.1331° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F3/F5V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

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 5.2 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Sculptor.
  • 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 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. ≈ 1.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 108.4 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
3.6
bv
0.459
constellation
Scl
dist ly
69.3949
luminosity
3.1623
mag
5.24
name
The Scl
spect
F3/F5V

About The Scl

The Scl is a common star. It lies about 69.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Scl, shines at apparent magnitude 5.24 and has spectral type F3/F5V.

Its spectrum reads F3/F5V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for The Scl in the constellation Scl. At apparent magnitude 5.24, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, The Scl 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 The Scl is a common star

The Scl scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, 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.