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Uncommon star 26 EP

46 Dra

RA 280.6581° · Dec 55.5395° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9.5p... — 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 5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Draco.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — 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. ≈ 6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 531.6 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.063
bv
-0.07
constellation
Dra
dist ly
340.455
luminosity
92.2996
mag
5.03
name
46 Dra
spect
B9.5p...

About 46 Dra

46 Dra is an uncommon star. It lies about 340.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 5.03 and has spectral type B9.5p....

Its spectrum reads B9.5p... — 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 46 Dra in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 5.03, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 46 Dra 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 46 Dra is an uncommon star

46 Dra 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, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star 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.