I can do this in my ipython notebook:
print(u"\u2605")
★
print('★'.encode('utf-16'))
b'\xff\xfe\x05&'
You can use unicode-escape
encoding:
>>> '★'.encode('unicode-escape')
b'\\u2605'
>>> print('★'.encode('unicode-escape').decode())
\u2605
or ord
if you just want to know the codepoint:
>>> ord('★')
9733
>>> hex(ord('★')) # as hexa decimal
'0x2605'
>>> print(r'\u%x' % ord('★'))
\u2605