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Common star 18 EP

HR 204

RA 11.5627° · Dec 55.3054° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2III — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 6.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around October — 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. ≈ 9.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.465
bv
0.181
constellation
Cas
dist ly
527.7605
luminosity
56.7545
mag
6.51
name
HR 204
spect
A2III

About HR 204

HR 204 is a common star. It lies about 527.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 6.51 and has spectral type A2III.

Its spectrum reads A2III — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HR 204 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 6.51, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 204 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 HR 204 is a common star

HR 204 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star and Giant star — 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.