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Trash star 6 EP

HD 5540

RA 14.4016° · Dec 34.1699° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
6 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 6

9 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F8 — 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 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Andromeda.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around October — 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. ≈ 5.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 492 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
3.735
bv
0.454
constellation
And
dist ly
315.1267
luminosity
2.7925
mag
8.66
name
HD 5540
spect
F8

Nearby objects

About HD 5540

HD 5540 is a trash star. It lies about 315.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation And, shines at apparent magnitude 8.66 and has spectral type F8.

Its spectrum reads F8 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 5540 in the constellation And. At apparent magnitude 8.66, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 5540 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 5540 is a trash star

HD 5540 scores 6 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Yellow-white F-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.