← Back to dex
Rare star 40 EP

GL Gl 812B

RA 314.1938° · Dec -4.8447° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 5 badges
40 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) +22
  • Binary star +6
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 40

10 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Binary star · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • 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 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 16.6 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Aquarius.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around August — 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 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
15.363
binary
yes
bv
1.16
constellation
Aqr
dist ly
57.6654
luminosity
0.0001
mag
16.6
name
GL Gl 812B
spect
DC9+

About GL Gl 812B

GL Gl 812B is a rare star. It lies about 57.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aqr, shines at apparent magnitude 16.6 and has spectral type DC9+.

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 812B in the constellation Aqr. At apparent magnitude 16.6, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 812B 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 812B is a rare star

GL Gl 812B scores 40 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Binary star, On the zodiac, 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.