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Common star 21 EP

HD 9696

RA 24.1581° · Dec 61.2767° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8V — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 8.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 42.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.558
bv
0.239
constellation
Cas
dist ly
2415.9702
luminosity
145.6129
mag
8.79
name
HD 9696
spect
B8V

About HD 9696

HD 9696 is a common star. It lies about 2,416 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 8.79 and has spectral type B8V.

Its spectrum reads B8V — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 9696 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 8.79, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 9696 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 HD 9696 is a common star

HD 9696 scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Hot blue B-type star and Main-sequence 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.