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Uncommon star 30 EP

HD 213470

RA 337.5779° · Dec 57.2254° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Supergiant +18
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3Ia SB — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 6.6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cepheus.
  • 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.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out yellow (B−V 0.7) — almost exactly the Sun's own shade — a stellar twin in colour, if not in size.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 5550 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

Properties

absmag
-13.38
bv
0.715
constellation
Cep
luminosity
19588446.7351
mag
6.62
name
HD 213470
spect
A3Ia SB

About HD 213470

HD 213470 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 6.62 and has spectral type A3Ia SB.

Its spectrum reads A3Ia SB — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 213470 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 6.62, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 213470 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 213470 is an uncommon star

HD 213470 scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star and Supergiant — 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.