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Common star 18 EP

HD 9851

RA 22.9597° · Dec -78.0694° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K2/K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

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 7.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Hydrus.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 18.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.7 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.027
bv
1.297
constellation
Hyi
dist ly
1076.4224
luminosity
84.9572
mag
7.62
name
HD 9851
spect
K2/K3III

About HD 9851

HD 9851 is a common star. It lies about 1,076.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hyi, shines at apparent magnitude 7.62 and has spectral type K2/K3III.

Its spectrum reads K2/K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 9851 in the constellation Hyi. At apparent magnitude 7.62, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 9851 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 9851 is a common star

HD 9851 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Orange K-type star and Giant 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.