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Uncommon star 30 EP

HD 11996

RA 29.9138° · Dec 60.0077° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K4III — 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 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 7.3 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. ≈ 26.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.048
bv
1.786
constellation
Cas
dist ly
1517.0047
luminosity
228.6652
mag
7.29
name
HD 11996
spect
K4III

About HD 11996

HD 11996 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,517 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 7.29 and has spectral type K4III.

Its spectrum reads K4III — 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 HD 11996 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 7.29, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 11996 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 11996 is an uncommon star

HD 11996 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 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), Orange K-type star, Giant star 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.