Trash star 8 EP

HD 55197

RA 106.4049° · Dec -71.2723° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges

8 pts · Trash

Trash 15 pts → Common

Star +3
Yellow-white F-type star +3
Main-sequence star +2

Total score 8

7 more points to reach Common.

Badges

Star · +3
Yellow-white F-type star · +3
Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F8V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 7.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Volans.
Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 3.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag: 3.888
bv: 0.536
constellation: Vol
dist ly: 186.162
luminosity: 2.4255
mag: 7.67
name: HD 55197
spect: F8V

Nearby objects

About HD 55197

HD 55197 is a trash star. It lies about 186.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vol, shines at apparent magnitude 7.67 and has spectral type F8V.

Its spectrum reads F8V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 55197 in the constellation Vol. At apparent magnitude 7.67, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 55197 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 55197 is a trash star

HD 55197 scores 8 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Yellow-white F-type star and Main-sequence 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.