About HD 85998
HD 85998 is a trash star. It sits in the constellation Vel, shines at apparent magnitude 8.48 and has spectral type G3V.
Its spectrum reads G3V — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Trash star 13 EP
HD 85998
RA 148.5391° · Dec -51.7575° · star
Score breakdown
· 3 badgesTrash 15 pts → Common
- Sun-like G-type star +8
- Star +3
- Main-sequence star +2
Total score 13
2 more points to reach Common.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Sun-like G-type star · +8
- Main-sequence star · +2
Trivia
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 3.5 million 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 G3V — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
- Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 8.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Vela.
- Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south 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 0.8) — cooler than the Sun, and the kind of star that burns steadily for tens of billions of years.
- Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.
Properties
- absmag
- -11.52
- bv
- 0.838
- constellation
- Vel
- luminosity
- 3531831.6979
- mag
- 8.48
- name
- HD 85998
- spect
- G3V
How to see it
Look for HD 85998 in the constellation Vel. At apparent magnitude 8.48, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, HD 85998 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 85998 is a trash star
HD 85998 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, Sun-like G-type star and Main-sequence 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.