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Rare star 38 EP

HD 17302

RA 41.2357° · Dec -48.6697° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M1III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 7.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Horologium.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south 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. ≈ 44.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.037
bv
1.659
constellation
Hor
dist ly
2528.3411
luminosity
568.591
mag
7.41
name
HD 17302
spect
M1III

About HD 17302

HD 17302 is a rare star. It lies about 2,528.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hor, shines at apparent magnitude 7.41 and has spectral type M1III.

Its spectrum reads M1III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for HD 17302 in the constellation Hor. At apparent magnitude 7.41, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 17302 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 17302 is a rare star

HD 17302 scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Cool red M-type star, Giant star, Deep red star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.