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Uncommon star 26 EP

HD 259264

RA 98.1499° · Dec 9.4914° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Bright giant +12
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Bright giant · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A7II — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 Monoceros.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. ≈ 20.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.168
bv
0.51
constellation
Mon
dist ly
1169.0178
luminosity
29.703
mag
8.94
name
HD 259264
spect
A7II

About HD 259264

HD 259264 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,169 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 8.94 and has spectral type A7II.

Its spectrum reads A7II — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for HD 259264 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 8.94, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 259264 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 259264 is an uncommon star

HD 259264 scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), White A-type star and Bright giant — 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.