Home
Search Objects
Major Solar System Objects
Comets
Asteroids
Spacecrafts
Star Maps
Orbits
public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
TimezoneEurope/London
Sunrise: 5:10 
Transit: 12:56 
Sunset: 20:42
warning Set your observing location to get relevant data
Search  close
All Constellations » Centaurus » 

τ Centauri (tau Centauri)

Below the horizon.  Never rises today
Alt: -57.55°   Az: 254.23°   Direction: West-South-West

τ Centauri is a main-sequence star of spectral class A2 in the constellation of Centaurus.

τ Centauri visual magnitude is 3.86. Because of its moderate brightness, τ 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 τ Centauri (tau Centauri) star
DSS2 image of τ Centauri. The red arrow shows the motion of τ Centauri during the next 1000 years (-3.07 arcmin in Right Ascension and -0.08 arcmin in declination);

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

12h 39m 06s
-48° 40’ 49”
08h 34m 10s
21h 13m 17s

J2000

12h 37m 42s
-48° 32’ 27”

Galactic Coordinates

300.59°
14.27°

Finder Chart

loader
  Loading map...
Finder chart for τ Centauri (tau Centauri).

Magnitude, Color, Spectral Class

3.86
Main-sequence

0.83
A2V
9542K

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

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

Distance, Radial Speed, Proper Motion

τ Centauri is distant 131.61 light years from the Sun and it is moving far from the Sun at the speed of 5 kilometers per second.

40.37
131.61
5 km/s
-0.184 arcsec/y
-0.005"/y

Alternative Designations

τ Centauri
(tau Centauri)
SAO223560
SAO223560

Visibility from Your Location

τ Centauri (tau Centauri) is currently not visible from Greenwich, UK