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Common star 20 EP

49 UMa

RA 165.2101° · Dec 39.2121° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads Am — 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.

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 5.1 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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 March — 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. ≈ 6.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 588.1 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.252
bv
0.255
constellation
UMa
dist ly
376.6234
luminosity
109.85
mag
5.06
name
49 UMa
spect
Am

About 49 UMa

49 UMa is a common star. It lies about 376.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 5.06 and has spectral type Am.

Its spectrum reads Am — 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 49 UMa in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 5.06, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 49 UMa 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 49 UMa is a common star

49 UMa 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 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and White A-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.