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Common star 20 EP

HR 3608

RA 136.6798° · Dec 59.3445° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2V — 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 on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

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 6.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Ursa Major.
  • 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 February — 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. ≈ 24.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.686
bv
0.045
constellation
UMa
dist ly
1376.1856
luminosity
411.5286
mag
6.44
name
HR 3608
spect
A2V

About HR 3608

HR 3608 is a common star. It lies about 1,376.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 6.44 and has spectral type A2V.

Its spectrum reads A2V — 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 HR 3608 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 6.44, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 3608 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 HR 3608 is a common star

HR 3608 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star and Main-sequence 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.