Kappa-2 Sculptoris, an orange giant star in Sculptor
Kappa-2 Sculptoris is an orange giant star in the constellation Sculptor. At 571 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.40.
Kappa-2 Sculptoris (HIP 930)
Kappa-2 Sculptoris is an orange giant star in the constellation Sculptor. At 571 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 5.40. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 12.4 km/s relative to the Sun.
Sky position: RA 0h 11.6m, Dec -27° 48.0'
Common designations: Kappa-2 Sculptoris, HR 34, HD 720, HIP 930, Gaia DR3 2321573107893212288
Kappa-2 Sculptoris 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 Kappa-2 Sculptoris in the sky
Kappa-2 Sculptoris lies in Sculptor. With a declination of -27° 48.0', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 62° N. It is bright enough to see with the naked eye under dark skies. It is highest in the sky at local midnight around October, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.
Tabulated data for Kappa-2 Sculptoris
Astrometry and spectroscopy
| Right Ascension (J2000) | 2.89341966° (0h 11.6m) |
| Declination (J2000) | -27.79971967° (-27° 48.0') |
| Galactic Longitude | 26.29781612° |
| Galactic Latitude | -81.13411215° |
| Proper motion RA | 5.06 mas/yr |
| Proper motion Dec | 12.90 mas/yr |
| Parallax | 5.71 ± 0.08 mas |
| Spectral Type | K2III |
| Radial Velocity | -4.59 km/s |
Photometry
| Band | Magnitude | Abs. Mag. |
|---|---|---|
| B | 6.76 | 0.54 |
| V | 5.40 | -0.81 |
| J | 3.27 | -2.95 |
| H | 2.48 | -3.74 |
| K | 2.41 | -3.81 |
Colour index B-V: +1.35
Derivations
- Heliocentric distance: 175.03 pc (571 light years) (1.4% margin of error)
- Absolute visual magnitude: -0.81
- Transverse velocity: 11.5 km/s
- Space velocity relative to the Sun: 12.4 km/s
- Galactic position (X, Y, Z): 24.2 pc, 12.0 pc, -172.9 pc
- Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -9.4 km/s, 7.1 km/s, 3.8 km/s
Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.