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Uncommon star 29 EP

56 Aqr

RA 337.5723° · Dec -14.5857° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8II — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 6.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Aquarius.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south 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. ≈ 11.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.073
bv
-0.047
constellation
Aqr
dist ly
630.8627
luminosity
93.1537
mag
6.36
name
56 Aqr
spect
B8II

About 56 Aqr

56 Aqr is an uncommon star. It lies about 630.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aqr, shines at apparent magnitude 6.36 and has spectral type B8II.

Its spectrum reads B8II — 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 56 Aqr in the constellation Aqr. At apparent magnitude 6.36, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, 56 Aqr 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 56 Aqr is an uncommon star

56 Aqr scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Bright giant 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.