About HD 94817
HD 94817 is a common star. It sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.63 and has spectral type G5.
Its spectrum reads G5 — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Common star 15 EP
HD 94817
RA 164.4439° · Dec 54.8101° · star
Score breakdown
· 3 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Sun-like G-type star +8
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
- Star +3
Total score 15
7 more points to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- Sun-like G-type star · +8
Trivia
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 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 G5 — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 8.6 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 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) — 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 4670 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
- -11.37
- bv
- 1.029
- constellation
- UMa
- luminosity
- 3076096.8147
- mag
- 8.63
- name
- HD 94817
- spect
- G5
How to see it
Look for HD 94817 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 8.63, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, HD 94817 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 94817 is a common star
HD 94817 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 3 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and Sun-like G-type 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.