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Rare star 37 EP

GL Gl 283A

RA 115.0852° · Dec -17.4133° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) +22
  • Binary star +6
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) +6
  • Star +3
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Binary star · +6
  • 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 DZQ6 — 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 13 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Puppis.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — 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. ≈ 511.7 thousand years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
13.246
binary
yes
bv
0.24
constellation
Pup
dist ly
29.1212
luminosity
0.0004
mag
13
name
GL Gl 283A
spect
DZQ6

About GL Gl 283A

GL Gl 283A is a rare star. It lies about 29.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 13 and has spectral type DZQ6.

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 283A in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 13, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 283A 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 283A is a rare star

GL Gl 283A scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Binary star, 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.