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Uncommon star 30 EP

Rasalhague

RA 263.7336° · Dec 12.5600° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A5III — 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 giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 2.1 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Ophiuchus.
  • 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 June — 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. ≈ 853.8 thousand years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.215
bv
0.155
constellation
Oph
dist ly
48.5858
luminosity
28.4446
mag
2.08
name
Rasalhague
named
yes
spect
A5III

About Rasalhague

Rasalhague is an uncommon star. It lies about 48.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Oph, shines at apparent magnitude 2.08 and has spectral type A5III.

Its spectrum reads A5III — 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 Rasalhague in the constellation Oph. At apparent magnitude 2.08, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Rasalhague 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 Rasalhague is an uncommon star

Rasalhague scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, White A-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.