16 Virginis, an orange giant star in Virgo
16 Virginis is an orange giant star in the constellation Virgo. At 337 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.96.
16 Virginis (HIP 60172)
16 Virginis is an orange giant star in the constellation Virgo. At 337 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.96. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 151.6 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 12h 20.3m, Dec +3° 18.8'
Common designations: 16 Virginis, c Virginis, HR 4695, HD 107328, HIP 60172, Gaia DR3 3701693091058501504
16 Virginis has the spectral type K0.5IIIbFe-0.5. K-type stars are orange stars with surface temperatures of about 3,900 to 5,300 K. Their spectra are rich in neutral metal lines and, in the cooler examples, molecular bands. 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 16 Virginis in the sky
16 Virginis lies in Virgo. With a declination of +3° 18.8', it is visible from the entire Northern Hemisphere and from the Southern Hemisphere down to about latitude 87° S. 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 16 Virginis
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 185.08742247° (12h 20.3m) |
| Declination (J2000) | 3.31257089° (+3° 18.8') |
| Galactic Longitude | 284.26479665° |
| Galactic Latitude | 65.05150679° |
| Proper motion RA | -293.28 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -63.57 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 9.67 ± 0.15 mas |
| Spectral Type | K0.5IIIbFe-0.5 |
| Radial Velocity | 36.78 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| U | 7.27 | 2.20 |
| B | 6.12 | 1.05 |
| V | 4.96 | -0.11 |
| R | 4.07 | -1.00 |
| I | 3.46 | -1.61 |
| J | 2.96 | -2.11 |
| H | 2.31 | -2.76 |
| K | 2.20 | -2.87 |
Colour index B-V: +1.16
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 103.41 pc (337 light years) (1.6% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.11
- Transverse velocity: 147.1 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 151.6 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 10.7 pc, -42.3 pc, 93.8 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -105.3 km/s, -109.1 km/s, 3.4 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.