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Epic star 75 EP

19 Cep

RA 331.2866° · Dec 62.2798° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
75 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Supergiant +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 75

3 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Blazing O-type star · +26
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O9.5Ib — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider than the Sun.

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 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 36.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-3.937
bv
0.24
constellation
Cep
dist ly
2064.2785
luminosity
3271.8998
mag
5.07
name
19 Cep
spect
O9.5Ib

About 19 Cep

19 Cep is an epic star. It lies about 2,064.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 5.07 and has spectral type O9.5Ib.

Its spectrum reads O9.5Ib — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for 19 Cep in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 5.07, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 19 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 19 Cep is an epic star

19 Cep scores 75 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Blazing O-type star, Supergiant and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.