39 Draconis Explained

39 Draconis is a wide binary star system in the northern circumpolar constellation of Draco. It has the Bayer designation b Draconis, while 39 Draconis is the Flamsteed designation. This system is visible to the naked eye as a dim, white-hued point of light with an apparent visual magnitude of 5.0. Parallax measurements made by the Hipparcos spacecraft put it at a distance of 184 light-years, or 56 parsecs away from the Sun. The system is moving closer to the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of -24.5 km/s.

The two components of 39 Draconis have an angular separation of and take almost 4,000 years to orbit each other. The primary star is an early A-type main-sequence star, having 2.12 times the mass of the Sun with a visual magnitude of 5.06 The secondary is a magnitude 8.07 F-type main-sequence star, and has 1.18 times the mass of the Sun.

The 8th-magnitude star HD 238865 is listed in double star catalogues as component C.[1] It is separated from the other two stars by and lies at about the same distance. It is itself a spectroscopic binary with an F8 primary and a red dwarf secondary orbiting every 2.7 days.[2] [3]

Notes and References

  1. 1 . Mason . B. D. . Wycoff . G. L. . Hartkopf . W. I. . Douglass . G. G. . Worley . C. E. . The Washington Visual Double Star Catalog . 2014 . 122 . The Astronomical Journal . 6 . 3466–3471 . 2001AJ....122.3466M . 10.1086/323920 . free .
  2. 2014MNRAS.437.1216D . The VAST Survey - III. The multiplicity of A-type stars within 75 pc . Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . 437 . 2 . 1216 . De Rosa . R. J. . Patience . J. . Wilson . P. A. . Schneider . A. . Wiktorowicz . S. J. . Vigan . A. . Marois . C. . Song . I. . MacIntosh . B. . Graham . J. R. . Doyon . R. . Bessell . M. S. . Thomas . S. . Lai . O. . 2014 . 1311.7141 . 10.1093/mnras/stt1932 . free . 88503488 .
  3. 1995AstL...21..247T . Spectroscopic components in multiple systems: ADS 11336C . Astronomy Letters . 21 . 2 . 247 . Tokovinin . A. A. . Smekhov . M. G. . 1995 .