126 Tauri (HIP 26777)

126 Tauri is a blue-white subgiant star in the constellation Taurus. At 636 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.84. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 26.4 km/s relative to the Sun.

Sky position: RA 5h 41.3m, Dec +16° 32.0'

Common designations: 126 Tauri, HR 1946, HD 37711, HIP 26777

126 Tauri has the spectral type B3IV. 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 126 Tauri in the sky

126 Tauri lies in Taurus. With a declination of +16° 32.0', it is visible from the entire Northern Hemisphere and from the Southern Hemisphere down to about latitude 73° S. It is bright enough to see with the naked eye under dark skies. It is highest in the sky at local midnight around January, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.

Tabulated data for 126 Tauri

Astrometry and spectroscopy

Right Ascension (J2000)	85.32382365° (5h 41.3m)
Declination (J2000)	16.53414592° (+16° 32.0')
Galactic Longitude	190.09291639°
Galactic Latitude	-7.31346721°
Proper motion RA	3.50 mas/yr
Proper motion Dec	-15.47 mas/yr
Parallax	5.13 ± 0.81 mas
Spectral Type	B3IV
Radial Velocity	21.90 km/s

Photometry

Band	Magnitude	Abs. Mag.
U	4.10	-2.35
B	4.71	-1.74
V	4.84	-1.61
J	5.05	-1.39
H	5.16	-1.29
K	5.19	-1.26

Colour index B-V: -0.13

Derivations

Heliocentric distance: 194.93 pc (636 light years) (15.8% margin of error)
Absolute visual magnitude: -1.61
Transverse velocity: 14.7 km/s
Space velocity relative to the Sun: 26.4 km/s
Galactic position (X, Y, Z): -190.4 pc, -33.9 pc, -24.8 pc
Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -18.4 km/s, -17.4 km/s, -7.4 km/s

Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.