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Rare star 35 EP

GL GJ 1149

RA 176.4418° · Dec 63.0992° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) +22
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads DC9 — 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 16.4 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Ursa Major.
  • 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 March — 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. ≈ 1.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 108.4 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
14.75
bv
0.66
constellation
UMa
dist ly
69.3949
luminosity
0.0001
mag
16.39
name
GL GJ 1149
spect
DC9

About GL GJ 1149

GL GJ 1149 is a rare star. It lies about 69.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 16.39 and has spectral type DC9.

Its spectrum reads DC9 — a white dwarf — the exposed, Earth-sized cinder of a dead star, with nothing left to burn.

How to see it

Look for GL GJ 1149 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 16.39, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL GJ 1149 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 GJ 1149 is a rare star

GL GJ 1149 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — 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.