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Rare star 35 EP

40 Cas

RA 24.6289° · Dec 73.0400° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Sun-like G-type star +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

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

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads G8II-IIIvar — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.
  • 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 5.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.458
bv
0.972
constellation
Cas
dist ly
458.0841
luminosity
132.8006
mag
5.28
name
40 Cas
spect
G8II-IIIvar

About 40 Cas

40 Cas is a rare star. It lies about 458.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 5.28 and has spectral type G8II-IIIvar.

Its spectrum reads G8II-IIIvar — a G-type star: the very same spectral class as our own Sun.

How to see it

Look for 40 Cas in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 5.28, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 40 Cas 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 40 Cas is a rare star

40 Cas scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Sun-like G-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.