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Rare star 36 EP

HD 16778

RA 40.9737° · Dec 59.8228° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
36 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • 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
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Supergiant · +18

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2Ia — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a luminous supergiant — among the largest and rarest stars in the galaxy.

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 7.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cassiopeia.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 41.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.606
bv
0.89
constellation
Cas
dist ly
2380.7007
luminosity
382.2962
mag
7.71
name
HD 16778
spect
A2Ia

About HD 16778

HD 16778 is a rare star. It lies about 2,380.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 7.71 and has spectral type A2Ia.

Its spectrum reads A2Ia — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 16778 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 7.71, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 16778 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 16778 is a rare star

HD 16778 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 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star and Supergiant — 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.