DR Chamaeleontis, a blue-white giant star in Chamaeleon
DR Chamaeleontis is a blue-white giant star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 1,060 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.97.
DR Chamaeleontis (HIP 52340)
DR Chamaeleontis is a blue-white giant star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 1,060 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.97. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 33.0 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 10h 41.9m, Dec -79° 47.0'
Common designations: DR Chamaeleontis, HR 4206, HD 93237, HIP 52340, Gaia DR3 5199170719128170112
DR Chamaeleontis has the spectral type B5III. 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 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 DR Chamaeleontis in the sky
DR Chamaeleontis lies in Chamaeleon. With a declination of -79° 47.0', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 10° N. Observers poleward of latitude 10° 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 DR Chamaeleontis
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 160.46466844° (10h 41.9m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -79.78328811° (-79° 47.0') |
| Galactic Longitude | 297.18467437° |
| Galactic Latitude | -18.38867346° |
| Proper motion RA | -16.88 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 6.08 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 3.08 ± 0.04 mas |
| Spectral Type | B5III |
| Radial Velocity | 18.00 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 5.39 | -2.17 |
| B | 5.89 | -1.67 |
| V | 5.97 | -1.59 |
| J | 6.00 | -1.56 |
| H | 6.09 | -1.47 |
| K | 6.07 | -1.49 |
Colour index B-V: -0.08
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 325.04 pc (1,060 light years) (1.4% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -1.59
- Transverse velocity: 27.6 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 33.0 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 140.9 pc, -274.4 pc, -102.5 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -17.1 km/s, -26.2 km/s, -10.4 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.