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Rare star 34 EP

HD 28159

RA 66.6131° · Dec -0.5112° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 34

16 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M1II — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Eridanus.
  • 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. ≈ 34.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.716
bv
1.567
constellation
Eri
dist ly
1953.03
luminosity
423.0581
mag
7.17
name
HD 28159
spect
M1II

About HD 28159

HD 28159 is a rare star. It lies about 1,953 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Eri, shines at apparent magnitude 7.17 and has spectral type M1II.

Its spectrum reads M1II — 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 28159 in the constellation Eri. At apparent magnitude 7.17, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 28159 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 28159 is a rare star

HD 28159 scores 34 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Cool red M-type star, Bright giant and Deep red 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.