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Uncommon star 28 EP

HD 166091

RA 271.1407° · Dec 63.7962° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K5II-III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions 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 7.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Draco.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • 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. ≈ 22.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.7
bv
1.32
constellation
Dra
dist ly
1304.624
luminosity
165.9587
mag
7.31
name
HD 166091
spect
K5II-III

About HD 166091

HD 166091 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,304.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 7.31 and has spectral type K5II-III.

Its spectrum reads K5II-III — 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 166091 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 7.31, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 166091 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 166091 is an uncommon star

HD 166091 scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Orange K-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.