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Uncommon star 25 EP

HD 188656

RA 299.2018° · Dec -16.6153° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads Asp... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

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 8.3 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 19.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.7 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.647
bv
0.063
constellation
Sgr
dist ly
1116.9728
luminosity
47.9954
mag
8.32
name
HD 188656
spect
Asp...

About HD 188656

HD 188656 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,117 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr, shines at apparent magnitude 8.32 and has spectral type Asp....

Its spectrum reads Asp... — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 188656 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 8.32, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 188656 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 188656 is an uncommon star

HD 188656 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Toward the galactic centre, On the zodiac and White A-type 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.