27 Scorpii, an orange giant star in Scorpius
27 Scorpii is an orange giant star in the constellation Scorpius. At 623 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.49.
27 Scorpii (HIP 82960)
27 Scorpii is an orange giant star in the constellation Scorpius. At 623 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.49. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 76.9 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 16h 57.2m, Dec -33° 15.6'
Common designations: 27 Scorpii, HR 6288, HD 152820, HIP 82960, Gaia DR3 6026503569318918400
27 Scorpii has the spectral type K5III. 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 27 Scorpii in the sky
27 Scorpii lies in Scorpius. With a declination of -33° 15.6', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 57° N. Observers poleward of latitude 57° 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 June, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for 27 Scorpii
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 254.29656172° (16h 57.2m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -33.25949229° (-33° 15.6') |
| Galactic Longitude | 350.54125408° |
| Galactic Latitude | 6.07011018° |
| Proper motion RA | 4.57 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | -9.29 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 5.24 ± 0.11 mas |
| Spectral Type | K5III |
| Radial Velocity | -76.37 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| B | 7.11 | 0.70 |
| V | 5.49 | -0.92 |
| J | 2.56 | -3.84 |
| H | 1.80 | -4.61 |
| K | 1.59 | -4.81 |
Colour index B-V: +1.62
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 191.00 pc (623 light years) (2.1% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.92
- Transverse velocity: 9.4 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 76.9 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 187.4 pc, -31.2 pc, 20.2 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -74.7 km/s, 8.3 km/s, -16.5 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.