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Epic star 53 EP

HD 164320

RA 270.5218° · Dec -35.6694° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
53 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Bright giant +12
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B7II — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • 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 Sagittarius.
  • 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 June — 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. ≈ 47.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.016
bv
-0.023
constellation
Sgr
dist ly
2695.5042
luminosity
557.6992
mag
7.57
name
HD 164320
spect
B7II

About HD 164320

HD 164320 is an epic star. It lies about 2,695.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 7.57 and has spectral type B7II.

Its spectrum reads B7II — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 164320 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 7.57, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 164320 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 164320 is an epic star

HD 164320 scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Toward the galactic centre, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Bright giant, Blue-white star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.