38 Aquarii, a blue-white giant star in Aquarius
38 Aquarii is a blue-white giant star in the constellation Aquarius. At 514 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.42.
38 Aquarii (HIP 109472)
38 Aquarii is a blue-white giant star in the constellation Aquarius. At 514 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.42. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 22.8 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 22h 10.6m, Dec -11° 33.9'
Common designations: 38 Aquarii, e Aquarii, HR 8452, HD 210424, Gaia DR3 2613067624829515008, HIP 109472
38 Aquarii has the spectral type B5III. B-type stars are hot (about 10,000 to 30,000 K), luminous and blue-white. They are massive, short-lived stars, typically only tens of millions of years old, and are common in young clusters and OB associations. 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 38 Aquarii in the sky
38 Aquarii lies in Aquarius. With a declination of -11° 33.9', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 78° N. It is bright enough to see with the naked eye under dark skies. It is highest in the sky at local midnight around September, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for 38 Aquarii
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 332.65617743° (22h 10.6m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -11.56493865° (-11° 33.9') |
| Galactic Longitude | 47.36557765° |
| Galactic Latitude | -49.23124380° |
| Proper motion RA | 29.12 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 8.73 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 6.34 ± 0.19 mas |
| Spectral Type | B5III |
| Radial Velocity | -1.70 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| B | 5.30 | -0.69 |
| V | 5.42 | -0.57 |
| J | 5.67 | -0.32 |
| H | 5.74 | -0.25 |
| K | 5.71 | -0.28 |
Colour index B-V: -0.12
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 157.74 pc (514 light years) (2.9% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.57
- Transverse velocity: 22.7 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 22.8 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 69.8 pc, 75.8 pc, -119.5 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -20.8 km/s, 1.1 km/s, -9.2 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.