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Common star 17 EP

HD 119916

RA 206.5795° · Dec -4.8763° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Deep red star +8
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 4.8 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 K5 — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.1 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out deep orange-red (B−V 1.6) — one of the coolest surfaces a star can have while still fusing.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3650 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.

Properties

absmag
-11.88
bv
1.599
constellation
Vir
luminosity
4920395.3568
mag
8.12
name
HD 119916
spect
K5

Nearby objects

About HD 119916

HD 119916 is a common star. It sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 8.12 and has spectral type K5.

Its spectrum reads K5 — 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 119916 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 8.12, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 119916 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 119916 is a common star

HD 119916 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Orange K-type star and Deep red 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.