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Rare star 38 EP

1 Lac

RA 333.9924° · Dec 37.7487° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • 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 4.1 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Lacerta.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • 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. ≈ 10.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.259
bv
1.447
constellation
Lac
dist ly
621.2496
luminosity
697.5896
mag
4.14
name
1 Lac
spect
K3III

About 1 Lac

1 Lac is a rare star. It lies about 621.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lac, shines at apparent magnitude 4.14 and has spectral type K3III.

Its spectrum reads K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for 1 Lac in the constellation Lac. At apparent magnitude 4.14, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 1 Lac 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 1 Lac is a rare star

1 Lac scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Orange K-type star, Giant star, Deep red star 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.