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Trash star 9 EP

HIP 18038

RA 57.8357° · Dec 10.0555° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
9 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 9

6 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Orange K-type star · +3

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.4 million 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 K2 — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Taurus.
  • 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 orange (B−V 1.3) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4130 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HIP number comes from Hipparcos, the ESA satellite that between 1989 and 1993 pinned down 118,000 stars precisely enough to triangulate their distances.

Properties

absmag
-11.13
bv
1.294
constellation
Tau
luminosity
2466039.3372
mag
8.87
name
HIP 18038
spect
K2

Nearby objects

About HIP 18038

HIP 18038 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Tau, shines at apparent magnitude 8.87 and has spectral type K2.

Its spectrum reads K2 — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HIP 18038 in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 8.87, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 18038 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 18038 is a trash star

HIP 18038 scores 9 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, On the zodiac and Orange K-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.