Zeta Sculptoris, a blue-white subgiant star in Sculptor
Zeta Sculptoris is a blue-white subgiant star in the constellation Sculptor. At 676 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.02.
Zeta Sculptoris (HIP 183)
Zeta Sculptoris is a blue-white subgiant star in the constellation Sculptor. At 676 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.02. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 19.4 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 0h 2.3m, Dec -29° 43.2'
Common designations: Zeta Sculptoris, HR 9091, HD 224990, HIP 183, Gaia DR3 2320885329010329216
Zeta Sculptoris has the spectral type B5IV. 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 IV marks it as a subgiant: it has exhausted hydrogen in its core and is beginning to expand toward the giant phase.
How to find Zeta Sculptoris in the sky
Zeta Sculptoris lies in Sculptor. With a declination of -29° 43.2', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 60° N. 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 Zeta Sculptoris
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 0.58302943° (0h 2.3m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -29.72044125° (-29° 43.2') |
| Galactic Longitude | 16.55071539° |
| Galactic Latitude | -78.90294500° |
| Proper motion RA | 9.18 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 15.08 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 4.82 ± 0.15 mas |
| Spectral Type | B5IV |
| Radial Velocity | 8.60 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 4.29 | -2.29 |
| B | 4.88 | -1.70 |
| V | 5.02 | -1.56 |
| J | 5.37 | -1.21 |
| H | 5.41 | -1.17 |
| K | 5.38 | -1.21 |
Colour index B-V: -0.14
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 207.32 pc (676 light years) (3.1% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -1.56
- Transverse velocity: 17.4 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 19.4 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 38.3 pc, 11.4 pc, -203.4 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -13.0 km/s, 9.6 km/s, -10.7 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.