η Car
ILLUSTRATION · NO MEASURED PROPERTIES
OBSERVING
] FROM WHERE YOU AREWhat it takes to see η Car for yourself. Everything in this part of the page is worked out for a real horizon, a real night and the equipment you say you have.
Say where you are, and this line says when η Car is worth going out for.
THROUGH AN EYEPIECE
] 150 MM TELESCOPE · 25 MM EYEPIECEBright enough to see with your eyes alone, once you are away from town lights. Its brightest companion sits 1.0′ away, which at 48× is cleanly split.
- 48×
- 1.08
- 1.25
- 13.0
- · AH
- 1.0 · cleanly split
- · AG
- 38.3 · cleanly split
- · AF
- 14.0 · cleanly split
- APPARENT MAGNITUDE ()
- 6.21 · within reach
A is where the pair was the year it was measured — the ones above, between 1933 and 2015, and a pair in a real orbit has moved since.
APPARENT PLACE
] EQUINOX J2026.7Where a telescope has to be pointed today, which is not quite where the catalogue records the object: the coordinate grid itself has turned since the year 2000 the catalogue is referred to.
- RIGHT ASCENSION
- DECLINATION
- GRID TURNED SINCE
- 11.5
- PROPER MOTION SINCE
- 0.17
Computed for 2026-08-27 00:00 UT. Two things separate it from the catalogued position above: η Car has moved under its own proper motion, and the coordinate grid has turned under it — about fifty arcseconds a year of precession since 2000, and the small nodding of the Earth’s axis on top of that. Aberration and refraction are not included, and neither is parallax; each is under an arcminute, which is also about as well as the catalogued position is known. The same figure for any date.
DOUBLE STAR
] 8 PAIRS| COMPONENTS | SEPARATION | POSITION ANGLE | MAGNITUDE | MEASURED |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU | 4″ | 141° | 14.3 | 1933 |
| AD | 4.4″ | 306° | 13.6 | 1934 |
| AS | 4.9″ | 108° | 14.4 | 1945 |
| AE | 13.8″ | 60° | 12 | 2015 |
| AF | 14″ | 41° | 11.7 | 2015 |
| AV | 20″ | 61° | — | 2015 |
| AG | 38.3″ | 68° | 9.96 | 2015 |
| AH | 60.8″ | 17° | 8.14 | 2015 |
Separation and position angle are as measured in the year given; a position angle is measured from north, through east. Washington Double Star Catalog 10451-5941.
CATALOG DATA
] 5 FIELDSThe raw catalogue values, as the source published them, with the error bars where one was published — sorted by what each set of figures is about rather than by the order they happened to be stored in.
WHAT KIND OF THING IT IS
What the object is in itself, rather than how it happens to look from here.
- Spectral type
WHERE IT IS AND HOW IT MOVES
Position, motion across the sky and the size it covers on it. These are measurements of the object as seen from here, so every one of them depends on where here is.
- Proper motion (RA)
- −2
- Proper motion (Dec)
- 6
- Radial velocity
- −25
OTHER NAMES AND NUMBERS
The identifiers other catalogues file this object under, for anyone joining this data to theirs.
- Washington Double Star id
- 10451-5941
ALSO KNOWN AS
] 3 DESIGNATIONS- Bayer/Flamsteed η Car
- HD HD 93308
- HR HR 4210
LOOK IT UP ELSEWHERE
] 3 SERVICESEach link carries the identifier printed beside it. Nothing on this page is a measurement of our own, so a number that disagrees with one of these is worth reporting — and a service that has never catalogued this object under this name will say so plainly.
- SIMBADHR 4210
Cross-identifications, measured values and the reference behind each of them.
- ADSobject:"HR 4210"
Papers indexed against this object rather than against the string, newest first.
- VizieR5″ around 161.2650 -59.6842
Every published table with a row at this position, searched by coordinates rather than by name.
CITE THIS PAGE
] DR1This page is live and its numbers move when an upstream refreshes, so the citation names the release the rows belong to rather than the day you read them. The release itself is frozen, republished as a bundle, and is what a data-availability statement should point at.
SpaceCatalog. η Car [catalogue entry]. Data release DR1 (2026-08-21). https://spacecatalog.org/object/hd-93308
@misc{spacecatalog_hd-93308,
author = {{SpaceCatalog}},
title = {{η Car}},
howpublished = {SpaceCatalog, data release DR1 (2026-08-21)},
year = {2026},
url = {https://spacecatalog.org/object/hd-93308},
note = {Catalogue entry, data release DR1 (2026-08-21). Values from HYG Database v4.1.}
}The values above were taken from HYG Database v4.1 — CC-BY-SA-4.0. Citing this page does not replace citing that catalogue, and its licence is share-alike: the terms reach whatever you build from these rows.