About HIP 120248
HIP 120248 is a common star. It lies about 401.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cam and shines at apparent magnitude 11.08.
Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3790 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Common star 15 EP
HIP 120248
RA 102.4619° · Dec 66.3582° · star
Score breakdown
· 3 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Deep red star +8
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
- Star +3
Total score 15
7 more points to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- Deep red star · +8
Trivia
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 11.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Camelopardalis.
- Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — that's when to go looking.
Could we get there?
- Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.
Getting there
- Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
- Fastest probe ever. ≈ 626.4 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
- At 10% light speed. ≈ 4012 years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Properties
- absmag
- 5.63
- bv
- 1.5
- constellation
- Cam
- dist ly
- 401.1758
- luminosity
- 0.4875
- mag
- 11.08
- name
- HIP 120248
How to see it
Look for HIP 120248 in the constellation Cam. At apparent magnitude 11.08, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HIP 120248 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 HIP 120248 is a common star
HIP 120248 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and Deep red 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.