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Trash star 14 EP

HD 12938

RA 32.1941° · Dec 60.9549° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
14 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 14

1 more point to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A5V — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • 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 8.8 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. ≈ 13.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.937
bv
0.54
constellation
Cas
dist ly
772.8814
luminosity
14.6285
mag
8.81
name
HD 12938
spect
A5V

About HD 12938

HD 12938 is a trash star. It lies about 772.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 8.81 and has spectral type A5V.

Its spectrum reads A5V — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 12938 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 8.81, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 12938 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 12938 is a trash star

HD 12938 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-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.