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Common star 15 EP

HD 5851

RA 15.2770° · Dec 60.3585° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F5IV — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 8.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
  • 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 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. ≈ 8.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.185
bv
0.52
constellation
Cas
dist ly
499.4733
luminosity
11.6413
mag
8.11
name
HD 5851
spect
F5IV

About HD 5851

HD 5851 is a common star. It lies about 499.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 8.11 and has spectral type F5IV.

Its spectrum reads F5IV — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 5851 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 8.11, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 5851 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 5851 is a common star

HD 5851 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.