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Uncommon star 33 EP

HD 166803

RA 273.2339° · Dec -15.1924° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
33 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1/B2Ib — 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.

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 8.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Serpens.
  • 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. ≈ 22.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.238
bv
0.131
constellation
Ser
dist ly
1264.1705
luminosity
69.952
mag
8.18
name
HD 166803
spect
B1/B2Ib

About HD 166803

HD 166803 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,264.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ser, shines at apparent magnitude 8.18 and has spectral type B1/B2Ib.

Its spectrum reads B1/B2Ib — 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 166803 in the constellation Ser. At apparent magnitude 8.18, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 166803 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 166803 is an uncommon star

HD 166803 scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star and Supergiant — 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.