HD 109942, an orange giant star in Coma Berenices
HD 109942 is an orange giant star in the constellation Coma Berenices. At 473 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 7.18.
HD 109942 (HIP 61676)
HD 109942 is an orange giant star in the constellation Coma Berenices. At 473 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 7.18. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 32.4 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 12h 38.6m, Dec +13° 48.3'
Common designations: HD 109942, HIP 61676, Gaia DR3 3932286517926010880
HD 109942 has the spectral type K2III. 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 HD 109942 in the sky
HD 109942 lies in Coma Berenices. With a declination of +13° 48.3', it is visible from the entire Northern Hemisphere and from the Southern Hemisphere down to about latitude 76° S. It is just beyond naked-eye visibility; binoculars will show it easily. 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 HD 109942
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 189.64619977° (12h 38.6m) |
| Declination (J2000) | 13.80544869° (+13° 48.3') |
| Galactic Longitude | 289.60236367° |
| Galactic Latitude | 76.34344356° |
| Proper motion RA | -15.28 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -35.63 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 6.89 ± 0.03 mas |
| Spectral Type | K2III |
| Radial Velocity | 18.33 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| B | 8.37 | 2.56 |
| V | 7.18 | 1.37 |
| J | 5.28 | -0.53 |
| H | 4.75 | -1.06 |
| K | 4.61 | -1.20 |
Colour index B-V: +1.19
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 145.16 pc (473 light years) (0.4% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: 1.37
- Transverse velocity: 26.7 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 32.4 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 11.5 pc, -32.3 pc, 141.1 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): 5.2 km/s, -29.8 km/s, 11.6 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.