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Trash star 13 EP

HD 59104

RA 108.7408° · Dec -81.2230° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
13 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 13

2 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2IV/Vm... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 8.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Mensa.
  • 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. ≈ 7.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.834
bv
0.288
constellation
Men
dist ly
443.1469
luminosity
6.4032
mag
8.5
name
HD 59104
spect
A2IV/Vm...

About HD 59104

HD 59104 is a trash star. It lies about 443.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Men, shines at apparent magnitude 8.5 and has spectral type A2IV/Vm....

Its spectrum reads A2IV/Vm... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 59104 in the constellation Men. At apparent magnitude 8.5, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 59104 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 59104 is a trash star

HD 59104 scores 13 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.