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Uncommon star 24 EP

HD 16799

RA 41.1039° · Dec 62.2568° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
24 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A5II — 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 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 7.8 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 11.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.292
bv
0.323
constellation
Cas
dist ly
656.2494
luminosity
26.4972
mag
7.81
name
HD 16799
spect
A5II

About HD 16799

HD 16799 is an uncommon star. It lies about 656.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cas, shines at apparent magnitude 7.81 and has spectral type A5II.

Its spectrum reads A5II — 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 16799 in the constellation Cas. At apparent magnitude 7.81, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 16799 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 16799 is an uncommon star

HD 16799 scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star and Bright giant — 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.