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public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
TimezoneEurope/London
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All Constellations » Centaurus » 

λ Centauri (lambda Centauri)

Below the horizon.  Never rises today
Alt: -24.80°   Az: 183.87°   Direction: South

λ Centauri is a double giant star of spectral class B9 in the constellation of Centaurus.

λ Centauri visual magnitude is 3.13. Because of its moderate brightness, λ Centauri is easily visible to the naked eye from locations with dark skies, while it might be barely visible, or not visible at all, from light-polluted skies.

Image of λ Centauri (lambda Centauri) star
DSS2 image of λ Centauri. The red arrow shows the motion of λ Centauri during the next 10000 years (-6.83 arcmin in Right Ascension and -0.83 arcmin in declination);

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

11h 36m 58s
-63° 09’ 37”
00h 31m 10s
12h 08m 08s

J2000

11h 35m 46s
-63° 01’ 10”

Galactic Coordinates

294.47°
-1.4°

Finder Chart

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Finder chart for λ Centauri (lambda Centauri).

Magnitude, Color, Spectral Class

3.13
Giant

-2.37
B9III
10653K

The red dot in the diagram below shows where λ Centauri is situated in the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram.

HR Diagram
H-R diagram showing the position of λ Centauri. Attribution: Richard Powell / CC BY-SA

Star System Properties

λ Centauri is a visual double star which can be observed only with the help of very large telescopes. The table below shows key information about the λ Centauri double sysyem:

3.13
11.33
8.2
16.3 arcsec

Distance, Radial Speed, Proper Motion

λ Centauri is distant 409.55 light years from the Sun and it is moving towards the Sun at the speed of 1 kilometers per second.

125.63
409.55
-1 km/s
-0.041 arcsec/y
-0.005"/y

Alternative Designations

λ Centauri
(lambda Centauri)
SAO251472
SAO251472

Visibility from Your Location

λ Centauri (lambda Centauri) is currently not visible from Greenwich, UK