Epsilon Muscae, a red giant star in Musca
Epsilon Muscae is a red giant star in the constellation Musca. At 326 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.02.
Epsilon Muscae (HIP 59929)
Epsilon Muscae is a red giant star in the constellation Musca. At 326 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.02. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 110.3 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 12h 17.6m, Dec -67° 57.6'
Common designations: Epsilon Muscae, HR 4671, HD 106849, Gaia DR3 5859405805013401984, GJ 9402, HIP 59929
Epsilon Muscae has the spectral type M4III. 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 Epsilon Muscae in the sky
Epsilon Muscae lies in Musca. With a declination of -67° 57.6', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 22° N. Observers poleward of latitude 22° 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 April, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for Epsilon Muscae
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 184.39281518° (12h 17.6m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -67.96073681° (-67° 57.6') |
| Galactic Longitude | 299.75121201° |
| Galactic Latitude | -5.29838307° |
| Proper motion RA | -230.61 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -26.21 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 9.99 ± 0.20 mas |
| Spectral Type | M4III |
| Radial Velocity | 7.10 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 7.27 | 2.27 |
| B | 5.60 | 0.60 |
| V | 4.02 | -0.98 |
| R | 2.12 | -2.88 |
| I | 0.36 | -4.64 |
| J | -0.21 | -5.21 |
| H | -1.20 | -6.20 |
| K | -1.42 | -6.42 |
Colour index B-V: +1.58
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 100.09 pc (326 light years) (2.0% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.98
- Transverse velocity: 110.1 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 110.3 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 49.5 pc, -86.5 pc, -9.2 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -90.5 km/s, -57.0 km/s, -27.3 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.