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Common star 15 EP

HD 11981

RA 29.4549° · Dec 10.3038° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 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
Total score 15

7 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

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 8.8 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. ≈ 19.4 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
1.169
bv
0.508
constellation
Psc
dist ly
1105.6137
luminosity
29.6756
mag
8.82
name
HD 11981
spect
F8

About HD 11981

HD 11981 is a common star. It lies about 1,105.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Psc, shines at apparent magnitude 8.82 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 11981 in the constellation Psc. At apparent magnitude 8.82, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 11981 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 11981 is a common star

HD 11981 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, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), On the zodiac 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.