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Uncommon star 28 EP

7 Cep

RA 321.9423° · Dec 66.8091° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B7V — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 5.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Cepheus.
  • 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 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. ≈ 14.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.543
bv
-0.099
constellation
Cep
dist ly
805.3235
luminosity
360.7447
mag
5.42
name
7 Cep
spect
B7V

About 7 Cep

7 Cep is an uncommon star. It lies about 805.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 5.42 and has spectral type B7V.

Its spectrum reads B7V — 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 7 Cep in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 5.42, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 7 Cep 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 7 Cep is an uncommon star

7 Cep scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence 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.