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Uncommon star 30 EP

40Alp Lyn

RA 140.2639° · Dec 34.3926° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M0IIIvar — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 3.1 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Lynx.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 3.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.831
bv
1.55
constellation
Lyn
dist ly
203.0859
luminosity
187.2406
mag
3.14
name
40Alp Lyn
spect
M0IIIvar

About 40Alp Lyn

40Alp Lyn is an uncommon star. It lies about 203.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Lyn, shines at apparent magnitude 3.14 and has spectral type M0IIIvar.

Its spectrum reads M0IIIvar — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for 40Alp Lyn in the constellation Lyn. At apparent magnitude 3.14, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 40Alp Lyn 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 40Alp Lyn is an uncommon star

40Alp Lyn scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Cool red M-type star, Giant star 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.