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Uncommon star 28 EP

4 Per

RA 30.5754° · Dec 54.4875° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8III — 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 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 5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Perseus.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • 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. ≈ 12.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.754
bv
-0.071
constellation
Per
dist ly
728.0268
luminosity
438.127
mag
4.99
name
4 Per
spect
B8III

About 4 Per

4 Per is an uncommon star. It lies about 728 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Per, shines at apparent magnitude 4.99 and has spectral type B8III.

Its spectrum reads B8III — 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 4 Per in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 4.99, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 4 Per 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 4 Per is an uncommon star

4 Per scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star and Blue-white 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.