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Uncommon star 25 EP

HD 21540

RA 52.6124° · Dec 47.0633° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8 — 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.

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 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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 November — 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. ≈ 42.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 3.8 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-2.334
bv
0.081
constellation
Per
dist ly
2434.0001
luminosity
747.4807
mag
7.03
name
HD 21540
spect
B8

About HD 21540

HD 21540 is an uncommon star. It lies about 2,434 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Per, shines at apparent magnitude 7.03 and has spectral type B8.

Its spectrum reads B8 — 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 HD 21540 in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 7.03, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 21540 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 21540 is an uncommon star

HD 21540 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.