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Uncommon star 31 EP

GL Gl 820.1

RA 318.3127° · Dec -81.8204° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) +22
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) +6
  • Star +3
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) · +22
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads DA6 — 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 13.6 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Octans.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 989.9 thousand years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 88 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
12.373
bv
0.25
constellation
Oct
dist ly
56.3311
luminosity
0.001
mag
13.56
name
GL Gl 820.1
spect
DA6

About GL Gl 820.1

GL Gl 820.1 is an uncommon star. It lies about 56.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Oct, shines at apparent magnitude 13.56 and has spectral type DA6.

Its spectrum reads DA6 — a white dwarf — the exposed, Earth-sized cinder of a dead star, with nothing left to burn.

How to see it

Look for GL Gl 820.1 in the constellation Oct. At apparent magnitude 13.56, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 820.1 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 820.1 is an uncommon star

GL Gl 820.1 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — 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.