About HD 278917
HD 278917 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Per, shines at apparent magnitude 10.62 and has spectral type G0.
Its spectrum reads G0 — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Trash star 11 EP
HD 278917
RA 55.7890° · Dec 34.8201° · star
Score breakdown
· 2 badgesTrash 15 pts → Common
- Sun-like G-type star +8
- Star +3
Total score 11
4 more points to reach Common.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Sun-like G-type star · +8
Trivia
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 483.1 thousand times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.
What it actually is
- Spectral class. Its spectrum reads G0 — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 10.6 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Perseus.
- 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 November — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.2) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
- Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.
By the numbers
- Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 7800 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Properties
- absmag
- -9.38
- bv
- 0.25
- constellation
- Per
- luminosity
- 492039.5357
- mag
- 10.62
- name
- HD 278917
- spect
- G0
How to see it
Look for HD 278917 in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 10.62, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HD 278917 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 278917 is a trash star
HD 278917 scores 11 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Sun-like G-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.