Epsilon Piscis Austrini, a blue-white giant star in Piscis Austrinus
Epsilon Piscis Austrini is a blue-white giant star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. At 551 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.18.
Epsilon Piscis Austrini (HIP 111954)
Epsilon Piscis Austrini is a blue-white giant star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. At 551 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.18. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 17.6 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 22h 40.7m, Dec -27° 2.6'
Common designations: Epsilon Piscis Austrini, 18 Piscis Austrini, HR 8628, HD 214748, Gaia DR3 6622561673163882752, HIP 111954
Epsilon Piscis Austrini has the spectral type B7III. 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 Epsilon Piscis Austrini in the sky
Epsilon Piscis Austrini lies in Piscis Austrinus. With a declination of -27° 2.6', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 63° 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 Epsilon Piscis Austrini
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 340.16395107° (22h 40.7m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -27.04361529° (-27° 2.6') |
| Galactic Longitude | 25.48662690° |
| Galactic Latitude | -60.97422501° |
| Proper motion RA | 21.84 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -1.59 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 5.92 ± 0.29 mas |
| Spectral Type | B7III |
| Radial Velocity | 1.10 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 3.69 | -2.45 |
| B | 4.07 | -2.07 |
| V | 4.18 | -1.96 |
| J | 4.28 | -1.86 |
| H | 4.37 | -1.77 |
| K | 4.40 | -1.74 |
Colour index B-V: -0.11
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 168.86 pc (551 light years) (4.9% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -1.96
- Transverse velocity: 17.5 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 17.6 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 74.0 pc, 35.3 pc, -147.7 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -13.8 km/s, -5.4 km/s, -9.4 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.