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Uncommon star 25 EP

HD 166021

RA 272.4560° · Dec -27.1940° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 698.2 thousand 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 A8/A9III: — 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 10.2 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.3) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 7540 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-9.78
bv
0.288
constellation
Sgr
luminosity
711213.5137
mag
10.22
name
HD 166021
spect
A8/A9III:

About HD 166021

HD 166021 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 10.22 and has spectral type A8/A9III:.

Its spectrum reads A8/A9III: — 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 HD 166021 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 10.22, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 166021 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 166021 is an uncommon star

HD 166021 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Toward the galactic centre, On the zodiac, 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.