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Common star 15 EP

HIP 15938

RA 51.3058° · Dec 4.8736° · 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 F5 — 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 10.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Taurus.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — 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. ≈ 28.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
2.284
bv
0.5
constellation
Tau
dist ly
1638.975
luminosity
10.6267
mag
10.79
name
HIP 15938
spect
F5

About HIP 15938

HIP 15938 is a common star. It lies about 1,639 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tau, shines at apparent magnitude 10.79 and has spectral type F5.

Its spectrum reads F5 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 15938 in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 10.79, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 15938 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 HIP 15938 is a common star

HIP 15938 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.