Star Stars · In Virgo
Vindemiatrix
Vindemiatrix, ε Virginis, is a yellow giant in Virgo: the 146th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Virgo
- Designation
- ε Virginis
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.85 · 146th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- G8IIIvar
- Distance
- 110 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- early April
- Position (J2000)
- RA 13h 02m · Dec +10° 58′
A yellow giant, around 5,400 K, like the Sun. About 29× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 69 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1916.
When to see it
On the night of Sun 4 Apr 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | 18:17 | 01:11 · 49° | 08:06 |
| New York EDT | 18:29 | 01:06 · 60° | 07:43 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:17 | 01:17 · 81° | 07:17 |
| Sydney GMT+10 | 18:38 | 00:08 · 45° | 05:37 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 51° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 44° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around early April, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by early July it is highest in the early evening, and in early January not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 110 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.85 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 7.4: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.85 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Porrima: Vindemiatrix is 13° north of it, a fist and a half at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 51°; from 35° north it climbs to 66°; from the equator it climbs to 79°; from 35° south it climbs to 44°.
Science
Vindemiatrix’s surface is about 5,400 K, some 400 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 540 nm, where the Sun’s is strongest at 500 nm. Moved to 33 light-years, the distance astronomers compare stars at, it would shine at magnitude 0.2, about as bright as Rigel looks to us.
Did you know
Against Porrima, the brighter star the hop starts from: the two look about as bright as each other in our sky; Porrima is 38 light-years away and Vindemiatrix 110 light-years, so side by side Vindemiatrix would give off 7.5 times as much light as Porrima.
Science
Vindemiatrix is the 58th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Algorab, about 53 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 29° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 16° south of Vindemiatrix around early October, when it is highest at noon, in daylight: the weeks either side are its worst time of year. From 50° north it is above the horizon for about 14 hours a day, from 35° north about 13 and from 35° south about 11. It is 74° from the plane of the Milky Way, well away from the band.