RA 59.7412° · Dec 35.7910° · star
34 more points to reach Mythic.
Menkib is an anomaly variable star. It lies about 1,244.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Per, shines at apparent magnitude 3.98 and has spectral type O7.5Iab:.
Its spectrum reads O7.5Iab: — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.
Look for Menkib in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 3.98, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.
Like any astronomical target, Menkib 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.
Menkib scores 86 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the anomaly tier. Another 34 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 9 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, Blazing O-type star, Supergiant, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) and Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) — 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.