VZ Camelopardalis, a red giant star in Camelopardalis
VZ Camelopardalis is a red giant star in the constellation Camelopardalis. At 498 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.96.
VZ Camelopardalis (HIP 36547)
VZ Camelopardalis is a red giant star in the constellation Camelopardalis. At 498 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.96. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 32.5 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 7h 31.1m, Dec +82° 24.7'
Common designations: VZ Camelopardalis, HR 2742, HD 55966, HIP 36547, Gaia DR3 1148730170578687744
VZ Camelopardalis has the spectral type M4IIIa. M-type stars are cool red stars below about 3,900 K whose spectra are dominated by titanium oxide molecular bands. Red dwarfs, red giants and red supergiants all fall in this class. 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 VZ Camelopardalis in the sky
VZ Camelopardalis lies in Camelopardalis. With a declination of +82° 24.7', it is visible from the entire Northern Hemisphere and from the Southern Hemisphere down to about latitude 8° S. Observers poleward of latitude 8° 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 February, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for VZ Camelopardalis
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 112.76861553° (7h 31.1m) |
| Declination (J2000) | 82.41146709° (+82° 24.7') |
| Galactic Longitude | 131.41854838° |
| Galactic Latitude | 28.17821252° |
| Proper motion RA | -3.63 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -41.62 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 6.55 ± 0.16 mas |
| Spectral Type | M4IIIa |
| Radial Velocity | 11.90 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 8.42 | 2.50 |
| B | 6.62 | 0.70 |
| V | 4.96 | -0.96 |
| J | 0.99 | -4.93 |
| H | 0.04 | -5.87 |
| K | -0.15 | -6.07 |
Colour index B-V: +1.66
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 152.56 pc (498 light years) (2.4% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.96
- Transverse velocity: 30.2 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 32.5 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): -89.0 pc, 100.8 pc, 72.0 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -29.4 km/s, -12.3 km/s, 6.1 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.