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Common star 16 EP

HD 237980

RA 168.8453° · Dec 58.4017° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F0 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

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 10.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 29.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.559
bv
0.423
constellation
UMa
dist ly
1681.2164
luminosity
20.7205
mag
10.12
name
HD 237980
spect
F0

About HD 237980

HD 237980 is a common star. It lies about 1,681.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 10.12 and has spectral type F0.

Its spectrum reads F0 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 237980 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 10.12, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 237980 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 237980 is a common star

HD 237980 scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Never sets (northern circumpolar) and Yellow-white F-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.