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Trash star 6 EP

HIP 42864

RA 131.0209° · Dec 36.2455° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
6 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 6

9 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads sdF8: — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subdwarf: an old, metal-poor star from the galaxy's early days, a little smaller and fainter than a main-sequence star of the same colour.

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 11 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Lynx.
  • 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. ≈ 5.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
6.014
bv
0.598
constellation
Lyn
dist ly
318.2011
luminosity
0.3423
mag
10.96
name
HIP 42864
spect
sdF8:

About HIP 42864

HIP 42864 is a trash star. It lies about 318.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lyn, shines at apparent magnitude 10.96 and has spectral type sdF8:.

Its spectrum reads sdF8: — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HIP 42864 in the constellation Lyn. At apparent magnitude 10.96, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 42864 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 42864 is a trash star

HIP 42864 scores 6 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star 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.