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Uncommon star 26 EP

HIP 102560

RA 311.7570° · Dec 34.5946° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Supergiant +18
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 871 thousand times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0Ib — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 10 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Cygnus.
  • 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 August — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out brilliant white (B−V 0.3) — hotter and whiter than the Sun, the colour of Sirius or Vega.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-10.02
bv
0.271
constellation
Cyg
luminosity
887156.012
mag
9.98
name
HIP 102560
spect
A0Ib

About HIP 102560

HIP 102560 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Cyg, shines at apparent magnitude 9.98 and has spectral type A0Ib.

Its spectrum reads A0Ib — 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 HIP 102560 in the constellation Cyg. At apparent magnitude 9.98, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 102560 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 HIP 102560 is an uncommon star

HIP 102560 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 3 science badges — Star, White A-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.