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Uncommon star 31 EP

HD 179808

RA 288.8257° · Dec -34.8094° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9III — 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 giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 8.1 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 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. ≈ 17.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.662
bv
-0.04
constellation
Sgr
dist ly
979.4474
luminosity
47.3369
mag
8.05
name
HD 179808
spect
B9III

About HD 179808

HD 179808 is an uncommon star. It lies about 979.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 8.05 and has spectral type B9III.

Its spectrum reads B9III — 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 179808 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 8.05, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 179808 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 179808 is an uncommon star

HD 179808 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 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, Giant 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.