Gamma Sculptoris, an orange giant star in Sculptor
Gamma Sculptoris is an orange giant star in the constellation Sculptor. At 189 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.41.
Gamma Sculptoris (HIP 115102)
Gamma Sculptoris is an orange giant star in the constellation Sculptor. At 189 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.41. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 29.7 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 23h 18.8m, Dec -32° 31.9'
Common designations: Gamma Sculptoris, HR 8863, HD 219784, Gaia DR3 6555948757627251072, GJ 9821, HIP 115102
Gamma Sculptoris has the spectral type K1III. K-type stars are orange stars with surface temperatures of about 3,900 to 5,300 K. Their spectra are rich in neutral metal lines and, in the cooler examples, molecular bands. 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 Gamma Sculptoris in the sky
Gamma Sculptoris lies in Sculptor. With a declination of -32° 31.9', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 57° N. Observers poleward of latitude 57° S see it as circumpolar: it never sets. It is bright enough to see with the naked eye under dark skies. It is highest in the sky at local midnight around October, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for Gamma Sculptoris
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 349.70598999° (23h 18.8m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -32.53202192° (-32° 31.9') |
| Galactic Longitude | 12.25083918° |
| Galactic Latitude | -69.24744902° |
| Proper motion RA | 26.42 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -79.99 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 17.29 ± 0.23 mas |
| Spectral Type | K1III |
| Radial Velocity | 18.65 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| B | 5.53 | 1.72 |
| V | 4.41 | 0.60 |
| J | 2.56 | -1.25 |
| H | 2.02 | -1.79 |
| K | 1.89 | -1.92 |
Colour index B-V: +1.12
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 57.83 pc (189 light years) (1.3% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: 0.60
- Transverse velocity: 23.1 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 29.7 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 20.0 pc, 4.3 pc, -54.1 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): 7.9 km/s, -21.6 km/s, -18.8 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.