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Common star 15 EP

HD 61061

RA 114.5237° · Dec 17.0756° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F5 — 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 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 35.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 3.1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.599
bv
0.492
constellation
Gem
dist ly
2000.9569
luminosity
151.2168
mag
8.34
name
HD 61061
spect
F5

About HD 61061

HD 61061 is a common star. It lies about 2,001 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Gem, shines at apparent magnitude 8.34 and has spectral type F5.

Its spectrum reads F5 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 61061 in the constellation Gem. At apparent magnitude 8.34, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 61061 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 61061 is a common star

HD 61061 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), On the zodiac 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.