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Common star 18 EP

HD 246766

RA 85.9572° · Dec 26.4263° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6

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 8.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Taurus.
  • 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 December — 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. ≈ 23.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.922
bv
0.119
constellation
Tau
dist ly
1315.1451
luminosity
37.2563
mag
8.95
name
HD 246766
spect
B8

About HD 246766

HD 246766 is a common star. It lies about 1,315.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tau, shines at apparent magnitude 8.95 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 246766 in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 8.95, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 246766 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 246766 is a common star

HD 246766 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), On the zodiac and Hot blue B-type 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.