About HIP 8261
HIP 8261 is a common star. It lies about 1,284.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas and shines at apparent magnitude 10.42.
Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3330 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Common star 21 EP
HIP 8261
RA 26.6006° · Dec 63.7229° · star
Score breakdown
· 4 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Deep red star +8
- Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
- Star +3
Total score 21
1 more point to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- Deep red star · +8
Trivia
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 10.4 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. ≈ 22.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
- Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
- At 10% light speed. ≈ 12.8 thousand years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Properties
- absmag
- 2.444
- bv
- 1.854
- constellation
- Cas
- dist ly
- 1284.0788
- luminosity
- 9.1706
- mag
- 10.42
- name
- HIP 8261
Nearby objects
How to see it
Look for HIP 8261 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 10.42, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HIP 8261 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 HIP 8261 is a common star
HIP 8261 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 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar) and Deep red 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.