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Common star 20 EP

HD 186610

RA 296.3638° · Dec -3.1518° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B3 — 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 9.7 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Aquila.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 48.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 4.3 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.048
bv
-0.006
constellation
Aql
dist ly
2740.8066
luminosity
83.3297
mag
9.67
name
HD 186610
spect
B3

About HD 186610

HD 186610 is a common star. It lies about 2,740.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aql, shines at apparent magnitude 9.67 and has spectral type B3.

Its spectrum reads B3 — 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 186610 in the constellation Aql. At apparent magnitude 9.67, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 186610 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 186610 is a common star

HD 186610 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points 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 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.