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Epic star 68 EP

HD 218915

RA 347.7790° · Dec 53.0582° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
68 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Supergiant +18
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 68

10 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Blazing O-type star · +26
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O9.5Iab — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant. Drop it where the Sun is and its surface would engulf the inner planets.

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 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Andromeda.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 43.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.184
bv
-0.026
constellation
And
dist ly
2489.7405
luminosity
651.0285
mag
7.23
name
HD 218915
spect
O9.5Iab

About HD 218915

HD 218915 is an epic star. It lies about 2,489.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation And, shines at apparent magnitude 7.23 and has spectral type O9.5Iab.

Its spectrum reads O9.5Iab — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for HD 218915 in the constellation And. At apparent magnitude 7.23, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 218915 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 218915 is an epic star

HD 218915 scores 68 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Blazing O-type star, Supergiant, Blue-white 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.