Mira, a red giant star in Cetus
Mira is a red giant star in the constellation Cetus. At 299 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 6.53.
Mira (HIP 10826)
Mira is a red giant star in the constellation Cetus. At 299 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 6.53. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 121.2 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 2h 19.3m, Dec -2° 58.7'
Common designations: Mira, Mira A, Omicron Ceti, 68 Ceti, HR 681, HD 14386, HIP 10826, Gaia DR3 2493390319631956352
Mira has the spectral type M5/6IIIe. M-type stars are cool red stars below about 3,900 K whose spectra are dominated by titanium oxide molecular bands. Red dwarfs, red giants and red supergiants all fall in this class. Its luminosity class III marks it as a giant: an evolved star that has left the main sequence and swollen to many times its original size.
How to find Mira in the sky
Mira lies in Cetus. With a declination of -2° 58.7', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 87° N. It is just beyond naked-eye visibility; binoculars will show it easily. It is highest in the sky at local midnight around November, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for Mira
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 34.83663376° (2h 19.3m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -2.97763767° (-2° 58.7') |
| Galactic Longitude | 167.75502902° |
| Galactic Latitude | -57.98267057° |
| Proper motion RA | 9.33 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -237.36 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 10.91 ± 1.22 mas |
| Spectral Type | M5/6IIIe |
| Radial Velocity | 63.50 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| B | 7.63 | 2.82 |
| V | 6.53 | 1.72 |
| R | 5.03 | 0.22 |
| J | -0.73 | -5.54 |
| H | -1.57 | -6.38 |
| K | -2.21 | -7.02 |
Colour index B-V: +1.10
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 91.66 pc (299 light years) (11.2% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: 1.72
- Transverse velocity: 103.2 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 121.2 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): -47.5 pc, 10.3 pc, -77.7 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): 17.1 km/s, -73.2 km/s, -95.0 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.