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Rare star 47 EP

HR 9005

RA 356.6530° · Dec 66.7822° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
47 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 47

3 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2IV — 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 subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Cepheus.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • 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. ≈ 26.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.348
bv
-0.049
constellation
Cep
dist ly
1489.2968
luminosity
757.1815
mag
5.95
name
HR 9005
spect
B2IV

About HR 9005

HR 9005 is a rare star. It lies about 1,489.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 5.95 and has spectral type B2IV.

Its spectrum reads B2IV — 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 HR 9005 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 5.95, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 9005 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 HR 9005 is a rare star

HR 9005 scores 47 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence), 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.