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Common star 21 EP

HD 117733

RA 203.1030° · Dec -12.6631° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Bright giant +12
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F3II/III — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 7.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Virgo.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • 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. ≈ 8.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.802
bv
0.364
constellation
Vir
dist ly
464.6095
luminosity
16.5653
mag
7.57
name
HD 117733
spect
F3II/III

About HD 117733

HD 117733 is a common star. It lies about 464.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 7.57 and has spectral type F3II/III.

Its spectrum reads F3II/III — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 117733 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 7.57, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 117733 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 117733 is a common star

HD 117733 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, On the zodiac, Yellow-white F-type star and Bright giant — 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.