← Back to dex
Rare star 36 EP

HD 14617

RA 36.0782° · Dec 63.5365° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
36 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 36

14 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K2II-III — 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 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 7.6 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
-0.778
bv
1.557
constellation
Cas
dist ly
1517.0047
luminosity
178.32
mag
7.56
name
HD 14617
spect
K2II-III

About HD 14617

HD 14617 is a rare star. It lies about 1,517 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 7.56 and has spectral type K2II-III.

Its spectrum reads K2II-III — 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 14617 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 7.56, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 14617 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 14617 is a rare star

HD 14617 scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 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, Bright giant 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.