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Common star 18 EP

HD 98587

RA 169.8642° · Dec -68.2752° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Bright giant +12
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 4.1 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 K1II — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Carina.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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 1.3) — 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 4120 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-11.7
bv
1.303
constellation
Car
luminosity
4168693.8347
mag
8.3
name
HD 98587
spect
K1II

Nearby objects

About HD 98587

HD 98587 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 8.3 and has spectral type K1II.

Its spectrum reads K1II — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 98587 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 8.3, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 98587 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 98587 is a common star

HD 98587 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Orange K-type star and Bright giant — 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.