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Uncommon star 30 EP

HR 285

RA 17.1842° · Dec 86.2571° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K2II-III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 4.2 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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 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. ≈ 4.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.43
bv
1.213
constellation
Cep
dist ly
280.2029
luminosity
129.4196
mag
4.24
name
HR 285
spect
K2II-III

About HR 285

HR 285 is an uncommon star. It lies about 280.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 4.24 and has spectral type K2II-III.

Its spectrum reads K2II-III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HR 285 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 4.24, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 285 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 285 is an uncommon star

HR 285 scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Orange K-type star and Bright giant — 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.