Beta Chamaeleontis, a blue-white main-sequence star in Chamaeleon
Beta Chamaeleontis is a blue-white main-sequence star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 304 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.23.
Beta Chamaeleontis (HIP 60000)
Beta Chamaeleontis is a blue-white main-sequence star in the constellation Chamaeleon. At 304 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.23. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 29.6 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 12h 18.3m, Dec -79° 18.7'
Common designations: Beta Chamaeleontis, HR 4674, HD 106911, Gaia DR3 5787534436419552896, HIP 60000
Beta Chamaeleontis has the spectral type B4V. 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 V means it is a main-sequence (dwarf) star, still fusing hydrogen into helium in its core like the Sun.
How to find Beta Chamaeleontis in the sky
Beta Chamaeleontis lies in Chamaeleon. With a declination of -79° 18.7', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 11° N. Observers poleward of latitude 11° 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 Beta Chamaeleontis
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 184.58676961° (12h 18.3m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -79.31223407° (-79° 18.7') |
| Galactic Longitude | 301.33679367° |
| Galactic Latitude | -16.54311306° |
| Proper motion RA | -40.51 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 11.41 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 10.71 ± 0.20 mas |
| Spectral Type | B4V |
| Radial Velocity | 23.00 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 3.59 | -1.26 |
| B | 4.10 | -0.75 |
| V | 4.23 | -0.62 |
| J | 4.69 | -0.16 |
| H | 4.54 | -0.31 |
| K | 4.56 | -0.29 |
Colour index B-V: -0.12
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 93.36 pc (304 light years) (1.9% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.62
- Transverse velocity: 18.6 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 29.6 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 46.5 pc, -76.4 pc, -26.6 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -3.9 km/s, -29.1 km/s, -4.0 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.