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Common star 16 EP

HD 105897

RA 182.7996° · Dec 56.6620° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Giant star +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6

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 K1III — 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 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 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 1.1) — 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 4490 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-11.38
bv
1.11
constellation
UMa
luminosity
3104559.5881
mag
8.62
name
HD 105897
spect
K1III

Nearby objects

About HD 105897

HD 105897 is a common star. It sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 8.62 and has spectral type K1III.

Its spectrum reads K1III — 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 105897 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 8.62, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 105897 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 105897 is a common star

HD 105897 scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Orange K-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.