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Uncommon star 31 EP

HR 881

RA 46.5330° · Dec 79.4185° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F7IV comp SB — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

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 5.5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Cepheus.
  • 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 November — 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. ≈ 12.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.14
bv
1.569
constellation
Cep
dist ly
691.0085
luminosity
248.8857
mag
5.49
name
HR 881
spect
F7IV comp SB

About HR 881

HR 881 is an uncommon star. It lies about 691 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cep, shines at apparent magnitude 5.49 and has spectral type F7IV comp SB.

Its spectrum reads F7IV comp SB — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HR 881 in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 5.49, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 881 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 HR 881 is an uncommon star

HR 881 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) 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.