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Uncommon star 26 EP

HD 174878

RA 273.8695° · Dec 86.6578° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Deep red star +8
  • Red dwarf +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Red dwarf · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M... — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

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 6.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Ursa Minor.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 16.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.5 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.833
bv
1.604
constellation
UMi
dist ly
959.2822
luminosity
187.5858
mag
6.51
name
HD 174878
spect
M...

About HD 174878

HD 174878 is an uncommon star. It lies about 959.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMi, shines at apparent magnitude 6.51 and has spectral type M....

Its spectrum reads M... — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for HD 174878 in the constellation UMi. At apparent magnitude 6.51, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 174878 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 174878 is an uncommon star

HD 174878 scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Cool red M-type star, Deep red star and Red dwarf — 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.