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Common star 17 EP

HD 85720

RA 148.4928° · Dec 10.2588° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Red dwarf +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Red dwarf · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M... — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 7.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Leo.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.3) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 4060 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.

Properties

absmag
-12.1
bv
1.335
constellation
Leo
luminosity
6025595.8607
mag
7.9
name
HD 85720
spect
M...

About HD 85720

HD 85720 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Leo, shines at apparent magnitude 7.9 and has spectral type M....

Its spectrum reads M... — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for HD 85720 in the constellation Leo. At apparent magnitude 7.9, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 85720 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 85720 is a common star

HD 85720 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Cool red M-type star and Red dwarf — 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.