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Common star 20 EP

HD 218301

RA 346.6260° · Dec 30.6195° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Bright giant +12
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A7II — 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 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 8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Pegasus.
  • 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 September — 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. ≈ 8.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.075
bv
0.325
constellation
Peg
dist ly
504.1051
luminosity
12.8825
mag
8.02
name
HD 218301
spect
A7II

About HD 218301

HD 218301 is a common star. It lies about 504.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Peg, shines at apparent magnitude 8.02 and has spectral type A7II.

Its spectrum reads A7II — 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 218301 in the constellation Peg. At apparent magnitude 8.02, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 218301 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 218301 is a common star

HD 218301 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-type star and Bright giant — 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.