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Trash star 13 EP

HD 76396

RA 134.4954° · Dec 51.4299° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
13 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 13

2 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4

Trivia

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.

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 8.9 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 21.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.9 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.049
bv
1.1
constellation
UMa
dist ly
1212.4758
luminosity
33.1436
mag
8.9
name
HD 76396
spect
R...

About HD 76396

HD 76396 is a trash star. It lies about 1,212.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.9 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 HD 76396 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 8.9, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 76396 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 76396 is a trash star

HD 76396 scores 13 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) and Never sets (northern circumpolar) — 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.