Nu Aurigae, an orange giant star in Auriga
Nu Aurigae is an orange giant star in the constellation Auriga. At 202 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 3.95.
Nu Aurigae (HIP 27673)
Nu Aurigae is an orange giant star in the constellation Auriga. At 202 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 3.95. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 10.2 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 5h 51.5m, Dec +39° 8.9'
Common designations: Nu Aurigae, 32 Aurigae, HR 2012, HD 39003, HIP 27673, Gaia DR3 3458053271535395712
Nu Aurigae has the spectral type K0.5IIICN0.5. 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 Nu Aurigae in the sky
Nu Aurigae lies in Auriga. With a declination of +39° 8.9', it is visible from the entire Northern Hemisphere and from the Southern Hemisphere down to about latitude 51° S. Observers poleward of latitude 51° 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 January, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for Nu Aurigae
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 87.87237274° (5h 51.5m) |
| Declination (J2000) | 39.14852391° (+39° 8.9') |
| Galactic Longitude | 171.83992064° |
| Galactic Latitude | 6.28024569° |
| Proper motion RA | 7.96 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 0.71 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 16.14 ± 0.44 mas |
| Spectral Type | K0.5IIICN0.5 |
| Radial Velocity | 9.92 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 6.16 | 2.20 |
| B | 5.09 | 1.13 |
| V | 3.95 | -0.01 |
| R | 3.15 | -0.81 |
| I | 2.59 | -1.37 |
| J | 2.18 | -1.78 |
| H | 1.67 | -2.29 |
| K | 1.51 | -2.45 |
Colour index B-V: +1.14
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 61.95 pc (202 light years) (2.7% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.01
- Transverse velocity: 2.3 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 10.2 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): -61.0 pc, 8.7 pc, 6.8 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -9.7 km/s, 0.4 km/s, 3.2 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.