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Rare star 37 EP

HD 194297

RA 305.1763° · Dec 66.6937° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1.5Ia — 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 luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.

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 9.3 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Draco.
  • 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 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. ≈ 20.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.564
bv
0.14
constellation
Dra
dist ly
1144.407
luminosity
20.6253
mag
9.29
name
HD 194297
spect
B1.5Ia

About HD 194297

HD 194297 is a rare star. It lies about 1,144.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Dra, shines at apparent magnitude 9.29 and has spectral type B1.5Ia.

Its spectrum reads B1.5Ia — 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 194297 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 9.29, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 194297 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 194297 is a rare star

HD 194297 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star and Supergiant — 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.