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Epic star 53 EP

GL Gl 169.1B

RA 67.7789° · Dec 58.9815° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
53 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) +22
  • Nearby (<25 ly) +12
  • Binary star +6
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Nearby (<25 ly) · +12
  • Binary star · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) · +22
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) · +6

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Not one star but two. It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads DC5 — a white dwarf — the exposed, Earth-sized cinder of a dead star, with nothing left to burn.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 12.4 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Camelopardalis.
  • 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 November — 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. ≈ 316 thousand years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
13.733
binary
yes
bv
0.31
constellation
Cam
dist ly
17.9839
luminosity
0.0003
mag
12.44
name
GL Gl 169.1B
spect
DC5

About GL Gl 169.1B

GL Gl 169.1B is an epic star. It lies about 18 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cam, shines at apparent magnitude 12.44 and has spectral type DC5.

It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

How to see it

Look for GL Gl 169.1B in the constellation Cam. At apparent magnitude 12.44, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 169.1B 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 GL Gl 169.1B is an epic star

GL Gl 169.1B scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Nearby (<25 ly), Binary star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White dwarf (a burnt-out core) and Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) — 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.