Nu Chamaeleontis, a yellow giant star in Chamaeleon
Nu Chamaeleontis is a yellow giant star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 190 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.44.
Nu Chamaeleontis (HIP 47956)
Nu Chamaeleontis is a yellow giant star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 190 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.44. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 30.0 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 9h 46.3m, Dec -76° 46.6'
Common designations: Nu Chamaeleontis, HR 3902, HD 85396, HIP 47956, Gaia DR3 5203572510849977984
Nu Chamaeleontis has the spectral type G8III. G-type stars are yellow stars of about 5,300 to 6,000 K, the same class as the Sun. Their spectra show strong lines of ionized calcium and many metals. 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 Chamaeleontis in the sky
Nu Chamaeleontis lies in Chamaeleon. With a declination of -76° 46.6', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 13° N. Observers poleward of latitude 13° 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 Nu Chamaeleontis
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 146.58596371° (9h 46.3m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -76.77611877° (-76° 46.6') |
| Galactic Longitude | 292.94202074° |
| Galactic Latitude | -17.64795234° |
| Proper motion RA | 83.01 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -56.33 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 17.16 ± 0.05 mas |
| Spectral Type | G8III |
| Radial Velocity | 11.42 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| B | 6.33 | 2.51 |
| V | 5.44 | 1.61 |
| J | 4.04 | 0.21 |
| H | 3.43 | -0.40 |
| K | 3.52 | -0.31 |
Colour index B-V: +0.89
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 58.26 pc (190 light years) (0.3% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: 1.61
- Transverse velocity: 27.7 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 30.0 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 21.6 pc, -51.1 pc, -17.7 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): 30.0 km/s, -0.4 km/s, 0.3 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.