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Uncommon star 23 EP

HD 211248

RA 333.9753° · Dec 0.0370° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8 — 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.

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 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Aquarius.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. ≈ 54.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 4.9 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.924
bv
-0.017
constellation
Aqr
dist ly
3106.2478
luminosity
203.9858
mag
8.97
name
HD 211248
spect
B8

About HD 211248

HD 211248 is an uncommon star. It lies about 3,106.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aqr, shines at apparent magnitude 8.97 and has spectral type B8.

Its spectrum reads B8 — 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 HD 211248 in the constellation Aqr. At apparent magnitude 8.97, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 211248 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 211248 is an uncommon star

HD 211248 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 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type 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.