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Common star 18 EP

HD 248666

RA 88.2894° · Dec 27.0445° · 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 B — 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 9.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. ≈ 30 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.7 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.155
bv
0.744
constellation
Tau
dist ly
1707.623
luminosity
30.0608
mag
9.75
name
HD 248666
spect
B

About HD 248666

HD 248666 is a common star. It lies about 1,707.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Tau, shines at apparent magnitude 9.75 and has spectral type B.

Its spectrum reads B — 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 248666 in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 9.75, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 248666 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 248666 is a common star

HD 248666 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.