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Common star 15 EP

HD 242630

RA 80.0439° · Dec 27.6462° · 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 F0 — 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 10.3 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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 December — 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. ≈ 23.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
2.255
bv
0.544
constellation
Tau
dist ly
1325.8375
luminosity
10.9144
mag
10.3
name
HD 242630
spect
F0

About HD 242630

HD 242630 is a common star. It lies about 1,325.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tau, shines at apparent magnitude 10.3 and has spectral type F0.

Its spectrum reads F0 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 242630 in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 10.3, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 242630 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 242630 is a common star

HD 242630 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.