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Common star 15 EP

HD 114494

RA 197.7178° · Dec 1.7256° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F6III — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Virgo.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around April — 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. ≈ 9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.731
bv
0.498
constellation
Vir
dist ly
509.6187
luminosity
7.0404
mag
8.7
name
HD 114494
spect
F6III

About HD 114494

HD 114494 is a common star. It lies about 509.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 8.7 and has spectral type F6III.

Its spectrum reads F6III — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 114494 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 8.7, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 114494 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 114494 is a common star

HD 114494 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 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Yellow-white F-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.