Star profile
Lambda Hydrus
What is Lambda Hydrus
Lambda Hydri hides inside the small Male Water Snake, a southern constellation created by the Dutch navigators Keyser and de Houtman at the close of the sixteenth century during their voyages to the East Indies. It is an orange K-type giant 212 light-years away, a star deep in its late evolutionary phase whose amber tone contrasts with the white of the neighbouring constellations. Its light belongs to a sky that the Greek or Roman astronomers never saw: it only entered stellar charts with the age of the great circumnavigations.
Where it is and when to see it
Lambda Hydrus lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is July, when it culminates around midnight.
- From London it never rises above the horizon.
- From New York it never rises above the horizon.
- From Sydney it never sets and culminates about 49° up.
It can be seen from anywhere south of 15° N.
It ranks no. 9 in brightness among the 20 stars of Hydrus in our catalogue. To find it, start from Beta Hydrus, the brightest: it lies about 3° away (a fist at arm's length covers about 10°).
The light you see today left it about 210 years ago.
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Astronomical data for Lambda Hydrus
- Constellation
- Hydrus
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.09
- Distance
- 211.8 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 12.147° · Dec -74.923°
- Catalogue
- HIP 3781 · HD 4815
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Other stars in Hydrus
Hydrus has 20 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Beta Hydrus2.82
- Alpha Hydrus2.86
- Gamma Hydrus3.26
- Eta 2 Hydrus4.68
- Nu Hydrus4.76
- Zeta Hydrus4.83
- Mu Hydrus5.27
- Theta Hydrus5.51