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Common star 17 EP

HIP 52553

RA 161.1683° · Dec 19.4230° · 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

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 1.3 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 M5 — 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 9.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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 March — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out orange (B−V 1.4) — 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 4000 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HIP number comes from Hipparcos, the ESA satellite that between 1989 and 1993 pinned down 118,000 stars precisely enough to triangulate their distances.

Properties

absmag
-10.47
bv
1.373
constellation
Leo
luminosity
1342764.9611
mag
9.53
name
HIP 52553
spect
M5

Nearby objects

About HIP 52553

HIP 52553 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Leo, shines at apparent magnitude 9.53 and has spectral type M5.

Its spectrum reads M5 — 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 HIP 52553 in the constellation Leo. At apparent magnitude 9.53, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 52553 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 52553 is a common star

HIP 52553 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.