Kappa Cassiopeiae, a blue-white supergiant star in Cassiopeia
Kappa Cassiopeiae is a blue-white supergiant star in the constellation Cassiopeia. At 3,064 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.16.
Kappa Cassiopeiae (HIP 2599)
Kappa Cassiopeiae is a blue-white supergiant star in the constellation Cassiopeia. At 3,064 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.16. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 16.1 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 0h 33.0m, Dec +62° 55.9'
Common designations: Kappa Cassiopeiae, 15 Cassiopeiae, HR 130, HD 2905, HIP 2599, Gaia DR3 430769040662018560
Kappa Cassiopeiae has the spectral type BC0.7Ia. 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 I marks it as a supergiant, among the most luminous and largest stars known.
How to find Kappa Cassiopeiae in the sky
Kappa Cassiopeiae lies in Cassiopeia. With a declination of +62° 55.9', it is visible from the entire Northern Hemisphere and from the Southern Hemisphere down to about latitude 27° S. Observers poleward of latitude 27° N 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 Kappa Cassiopeiae
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 8.24996618° (0h 33.0m) |
| Declination (J2000) | 62.93178142° (+62° 55.9') |
| Galactic Longitude | 120.83615097° |
| Galactic Latitude | 0.13508682° |
| Proper motion RA | 3.13 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -1.83 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 1.06 ± 0.16 mas |
| Spectral Type | BC0.7Ia |
| Radial Velocity | 0.30 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 3.50 | -6.36 |
| B | 4.30 | -5.56 |
| V | 4.16 | -5.70 |
| R | 4.02 | -5.84 |
| I | 3.96 | -5.90 |
| J | 3.99 | -5.87 |
| H | 3.81 | -6.05 |
| K | 3.88 | -5.98 |
Colour index B-V: +0.14
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 939.50 pc (3,064 light years) (15.3% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -5.70
- Transverse velocity: 16.1 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 16.1 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): -481.6 pc, 806.7 pc, 2.2 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -11.6 km/s, -6.5 km/s, -9.1 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.