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Common star 15 EP

HR 3506

RA 133.2747° · Dec 59.0561° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F5IV-V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 6.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Ursa Major.
  • 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 February — 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. ≈ 3.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.439
bv
0.414
constellation
UMa
dist ly
197.5507
luminosity
9.213
mag
6.35
name
HR 3506
spect
F5IV-V

About HR 3506

HR 3506 is a common star. It lies about 197.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 6.35 and has spectral type F5IV-V.

Its spectrum reads F5IV-V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HR 3506 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 6.35, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 3506 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 HR 3506 is a common star

HR 3506 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, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.