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Rare star 37 EP

HD 166968

RA 273.5451° · Dec -27.5028° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8II/III — 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 7.2 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 15 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.076
bv
-0.017
constellation
Sgr
dist ly
851.5822
luminosity
81.2082
mag
7.16
name
HD 166968
spect
B8II/III

About HD 166968

HD 166968 is a rare star. It lies about 851.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 7.16 and has spectral type B8II/III.

Its spectrum reads B8II/III — 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 166968 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 7.16, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 166968 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 166968 is a rare star

HD 166968 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Toward the galactic centre, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Bright giant and Blue-white 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.