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Common star 19 EP

HD 115515

RA 199.8152° · Dec -65.7522° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A9IV — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 9.4 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Musca.
  • 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 April — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 28.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.957
bv
0.388
constellation
Mus
dist ly
1614.6336
luminosity
36.0745
mag
9.43
name
HD 115515
spect
A9IV

About HD 115515

HD 115515 is a common star. It lies about 1,614.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mus, shines at apparent magnitude 9.43 and has spectral type A9IV.

Its spectrum reads A9IV — 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 115515 in the constellation Mus. At apparent magnitude 9.43, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 115515 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 115515 is a common star

HD 115515 scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.