Zeta Chamaeleontis, a blue-white subgiant star in Chamaeleon
Zeta Chamaeleontis is a blue-white subgiant star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 543 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.06.
Zeta Chamaeleontis (HIP 46928)
Zeta Chamaeleontis is a blue-white subgiant star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 543 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.06. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 51.2 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 9h 33.9m, Dec -80° 56.5'
Common designations: Zeta Chamaeleontis, HR 3860, HD 83979, HIP 46928, Gaia DR3 5195896888895916288
Zeta Chamaeleontis has the spectral type B4IV. 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 Chamaeleontis in the sky
Zeta Chamaeleontis lies in Chamaeleon. With a declination of -80° 56.5', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 9° N. Observers poleward of latitude 9° S 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 March, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for Zeta Chamaeleontis
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 143.47239735° (9h 33.9m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -80.94125797° (-80° 56.5') |
| Galactic Longitude | 295.57425511° |
| Galactic Latitude | -21.04384037° |
| Proper motion RA | -34.58 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 13.56 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 6.00 ± 0.11 mas |
| Spectral Type | B4IV |
| Radial Velocity | -42.00 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 4.40 | -1.71 |
| B | 4.92 | -1.19 |
| V | 5.06 | -1.05 |
| J | 5.41 | -0.70 |
| H | 5.38 | -0.72 |
| K | 5.43 | -0.68 |
Colour index B-V: -0.14
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 166.55 pc (543 light years) (1.9% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -1.05
- Transverse velocity: 29.3 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 51.2 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 67.1 pc, -140.2 pc, -59.8 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -42.8 km/s, 27.9 km/s, 3.5 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.