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Rare star 34 EP

12 Cep

RA 326.8554° · Dec 60.6927° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 34

16 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M1III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 5.5 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. ≈ 8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.208
bv
1.575
constellation
Cep
dist ly
458.0841
luminosity
105.4873
mag
5.53
name
12 Cep
spect
M1III

About 12 Cep

12 Cep is a rare star. It lies about 458.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 5.53 and has spectral type M1III.

Its spectrum reads M1III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for 12 Cep in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 5.53, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 12 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 12 Cep is a rare star

12 Cep scores 34 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Cool red M-type star, Giant star and Deep red 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.