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Common star 20 EP

Eps Men

RA 111.4091° · Dec -79.0942° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K2/K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

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 5.5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 8.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 728.6 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.238
bv
1.281
constellation
Men
dist ly
466.6037
luminosity
108.4426
mag
5.54
name
Eps Men
spect
K2/K3III

About Eps Men

Eps Men is a common star. It lies about 466.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Men, shines at apparent magnitude 5.54 and has spectral type K2/K3III.

Its spectrum reads K2/K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for Eps Men in the constellation Men. At apparent magnitude 5.54, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Eps Men 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 Eps Men is a common star

Eps Men scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Orange K-type star and Giant 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.