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Trash star 11 EP

HIP 39118

RA 120.0509° · Dec -4.7579° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
11 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Deep red star +8
  • Star +3
Total score 11

4 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 586.1 thousand times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads R... — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 10.4 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Monoceros.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out deep orange-red (B−V 1.5) — one of the coolest surfaces a star can have while still fusing.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3820 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HIP number comes from Hipparcos, the ESA satellite that between 1989 and 1993 pinned down 118,000 stars precisely enough to triangulate their distances.

Properties

absmag
-9.59
bv
1.48
constellation
Mon
luminosity
597035.2866
mag
10.41
name
HIP 39118
spect
R...

About HIP 39118

HIP 39118 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 10.41 and has spectral type R....

Its spectrum reads R... — a carbon star, wrapped in so much soot that its light is filtered to a deep ruby red.

How to see it

Look for HIP 39118 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 10.41, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 39118 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 HIP 39118 is a trash star

HIP 39118 scores 11 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Deep red 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.