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Common star 17 EP

HD 8231

RA 20.4742° · Dec 16.3834° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F4V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 8.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Pisces.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 39 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.243
bv
0.457
constellation
Psc
dist ly
2218.7483
luminosity
108.9432
mag
8.92
name
HD 8231
spect
F4V

About HD 8231

HD 8231 is a common star. It lies about 2,218.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Psc, shines at apparent magnitude 8.92 and has spectral type F4V.

Its spectrum reads F4V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 8231 in the constellation Psc. At apparent magnitude 8.92, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 8231 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 8231 is a common star

HD 8231 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 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), On the zodiac, 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.