About HD 103904
HD 103904 is a common star. It sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 9.1 and has spectral type G9III.
Its spectrum reads G9III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
Common star 21 EP
HD 103904
RA 179.4722° · Dec 45.5107° · star
Score breakdown
· 4 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Sun-like G-type star +8
- Giant star +6
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
- Star +3
Total score 21
1 more point to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- Sun-like G-type star · +8
- Giant star · +6
Trivia
Hard to believe
- True brightness. It pours out about 2 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 G9III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
- Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 9.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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.
- 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
- -10.9
- bv
- 0.983
- constellation
- UMa
- luminosity
- 1995262.315
- mag
- 9.1
- name
- HD 103904
- spect
- G9III
How to see it
Look for HD 103904 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 9.1, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HD 103904 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 103904 is a common star
HD 103904 scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Sun-like G-type star and Giant 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.