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Common star 19 EP

61 Gem

RA 111.7347° · Dec 20.2576° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F2Vn — 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 5.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Gemini.
  • 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 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. ≈ 7.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.257
bv
0.336
constellation
Gem
dist ly
446.789
luminosity
68.7385
mag
5.94
name
61 Gem
spect
F2Vn

About 61 Gem

61 Gem is a common star. It lies about 446.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Gem, shines at apparent magnitude 5.94 and has spectral type F2Vn.

Its spectrum reads F2Vn — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for 61 Gem in the constellation Gem. At apparent magnitude 5.94, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 61 Gem 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 61 Gem is a common star

61 Gem scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, On the zodiac, 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.