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Uncommon star 23 EP

HD 207974

RA 328.9382° · Dec -66.1565° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Sun-like G-type star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Sun-like G-type star · +8
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads G8III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
  • 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 9.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Indus.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 31.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.376
bv
1.04
constellation
Ind
dist ly
1811.9779
luminosity
61.6027
mag
9.1
name
HD 207974
spect
G8III

About HD 207974

HD 207974 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,812 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ind, shines at apparent magnitude 9.1 and has spectral type G8III.

Its spectrum reads G8III — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 207974 in the constellation Ind. At apparent magnitude 9.1, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 207974 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 207974 is an uncommon star

HD 207974 scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Sun-like G-type star and Giant 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.