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Common star 18 EP

HD 290839

RA 86.1171° · Dec -0.6186° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • 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 9.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Orion.
  • 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 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. ≈ 24.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.656
bv
0.248
constellation
Ori
dist ly
1393.829
luminosity
18.9496
mag
9.81
name
HD 290839
spect
F0

About HD 290839

HD 290839 is a common star. It lies about 1,393.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 9.81 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 290839 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 9.81, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 290839 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 290839 is a common star

HD 290839 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), In Orion's hunting ground 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.