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Common star 16 EP

56 Cyg

RA 312.5204° · Dec 44.0593° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A4me... — 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 5.1 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 2.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 208.6 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.998
bv
0.198
constellation
Cyg
dist ly
133.6157
luminosity
13.8293
mag
5.06
name
56 Cyg
spect
A4me...

About 56 Cyg

56 Cyg is a common star. It lies about 133.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cyg, shines at apparent magnitude 5.06 and has spectral type A4me....

Its spectrum reads A4me... — 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 56 Cyg in the constellation Cyg. At apparent magnitude 5.06, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 56 Cyg 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 56 Cyg is a common star

56 Cyg scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible 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.