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Uncommon star 29 EP

GL Gl 828.5

RA 321.7399° · Dec 73.6460° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) +22
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) · +22

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads DA4 — 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 12.8 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Cepheus.
  • 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 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. ≈ 1.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 104.4 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
11.242
bv
0.02
constellation
Cep
dist ly
66.8352
luminosity
0.0028
mag
12.8
name
GL Gl 828.5
spect
DA4

About GL Gl 828.5

GL Gl 828.5 is an uncommon star. It lies about 66.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 12.8 and has spectral type DA4.

Its spectrum reads DA4 — 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 828.5 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 12.8, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 828.5 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 828.5 is an uncommon star

GL Gl 828.5 scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and White dwarf (a burnt-out core) — 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.