AG Carinae, a blue Wolf-Rayet star in Carina
AG Carinae is a blue Wolf-Rayet star in the constellation Carina. At 16,943 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 6.96.
AG Carinae (HIP 53461)
AG Carinae is a blue Wolf-Rayet star in the constellation Carina. At 16,943 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 6.96. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 138.8 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 10h 56.2m, Dec -60° 27.2'
Common designations: AG Carinae, HD 94910, HIP 53461, Gaia DR3 5338220285385672064
AG Carinae has the spectral type WN11h.
How to find AG Carinae in the sky
AG Carinae lies in Carina. With a declination of -60° 27.2', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 30° N. Observers poleward of latitude 30° S see it as circumpolar: it never sets. It is just beyond naked-eye visibility; binoculars will show it easily. 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 AG Carinae
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 164.04824226° (10h 56.2m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -60.45355852° (-60° 27.2') |
| Galactic Longitude | 289.18292866° |
| Galactic Latitude | -0.69530215° |
| Proper motion RA | -4.81 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 1.96 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 0.19 ± 0.02 mas |
| Spectral Type | WN11h |
| Radial Velocity | -54.00 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 7.00 | -6.58 |
| B | 7.57 | -6.01 |
| V | 6.96 | -6.62 |
| R | 7.73 | -5.85 |
| J | 5.42 | -8.16 |
| H | 5.08 | -8.49 |
| K | 4.53 | -9.05 |
Colour index B-V: +0.61
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 5,194.81 pc (16,943 light years) (8.6% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -6.62
- Transverse velocity: 127.8 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 138.8 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 1706.8 pc, -4906.0 pc, -63.0 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -138.3 km/s, 9.2 km/s, -6.6 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.