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Trash star 12 EP

HD 103540

RA 178.8687° · Dec 54.7794° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
12 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 12

3 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3 — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.4 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 11.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.925
bv
0.304
constellation
UMa
dist ly
652.312
luminosity
14.7911
mag
8.43
name
HD 103540
spect
A3

About HD 103540

HD 103540 is a trash star. It lies about 652.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.43 and has spectral type A3.

Its spectrum reads A3 — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 103540 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 8.43, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 103540 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 103540 is a trash star

HD 103540 scores 12 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and White A-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.