Fum al Samakah / Beta Piscium Facts (Type, Distance, Magnitude, Colour, Luminosity, Location & more)

Fum al Samakah Facts

• Fum al Samakah is a Subgiant Star.
• Fum al Samakah is a main star in the constellation Pisces and makes up the constellation outline.
• Based on the spectral type (B7 IV/V) of the star, the Fum al Samakah colour is blue .
• The star can be seen with the naked eye, that is, you don't need a telescope/binoculars to see it.
• Using the most recent figures given by the 2007 Hipparcos data, Fum al Samakah distance from Earth is 408.21 light years.

Fum al Samakah Location

The location of the subgiant star in the night sky is determined by the Right Ascension (R.A.) and Declination (Dec.), these are equivalent to the Longitude and Latitude on the Earth. The Right Ascension is how far expressed in time (hh:mm:ss) the star is along the celestial equator. If the R.A. is positive then its eastwards. The Declination is how far north or south the object is compared to the celestial equator and is expressed in degrees. For Fum al Samakah, the location is 23h 03m 52.61 and +03° 49` 12.3 .

Fum al Samakah Radial Velocity and Proper Motion

Fum al Samakah Proper Motion

All stars like planets orbit round a central spot, in the case of planets, its the central star such as the Sun. In the case of a star, its the galactic centre. The constellations that we see today will be different than they were 50,000 years ago or 50,000 years from now. Proper Motion details the movements of these stars and are measured in milliarcseconds. The star is moving -9.85 ± 0.16 milliarcseconds/year towards the north and 11.76 ± 0.22 milliarcseconds/year east if we saw them in the horizon.

Fum al Samakah Radial Velocity

The Radial Velocity, that is the speed at which the star is moving away/towards the Sun is 0.00000 km/s with an error of about 0.60 km/s . When the value is negative then the star and the Sun are getting closer to one another, likewise, a positive number means that two stars are moving away. Its nothing to fear as the stars are so far apart, they won't collide in our life-time, if ever.

Fum al Samakah Physical Properties

Fum al Samakah Colour and Temperature

Based on the star's spectral type of B7 IV/V , Fum al Samakah's colour and type is blue subgiant star. Based on the spectral type, we can deduce that the surface temperature of the star is in the order of between 10,000 and 25,000K based on the notes from Harvard University. To put this in context, the temperature of our Sun is about 5,778 Kelvin as said by Google.

Fum al Samakah Luminosity

Luminosity is the amount of energy that a star pumps out and its relative to the amount that our star, the Sun gives out. The figure of 434.23 that I have given is based on the value in the Simbad Hipparcos Extended Catalogue at the University of Strasbourg from 2012.

Fum al Samakah Radius

Fum al Samakah estimated radius has been calculated as being 4.15 times bigger than the Sun. The Sun's radius is 695,800km, therefore the star's radius is an estimated 2,888,052.56.km. If you need the diameter of the star, you just need to multiple the radius by 2. However with the 2007 release of updated Hipparcos files, the radius is now calculated at being round 3.44. The figure is derived at by using the formula from SDSS rather than peer reviewed papers. It has been known to produce widely incorrect figures.

Fum al Samakah Apparent (Brightness) and Absolute Magnitudes

Fum al Samakah apparent magnitude is 4.48, this is a measure of the brightness of the star as seen from Earth. Apparent Magnitude is also known as Visual Magnitude. If you used the 1997 Parallax value, Fum al Samakah absolute magnitude is -1.42 If you used the 2007 Parallax value, Fum al Samakah absolute magnitude is -1.01.

Absolute Magnitude is the apparent magnitude of the star from a distance of 10 parsecs or 32.6 light years. This assumes that there is nothing in between the object and the viewer such as dust clouds. To really compare the brightness of the star, it is best to use Absolute rather than Apparent Magnitude.

Magnitude, whether it be apparent/visual or absolute magnitude is measured by a number, the smaller the number, the brighter the Star is. Our own Sun is the brightest star and therefore has the lowest of all magnitudes, -26.74. A faint star will have a high number.

Fum al Samakah Distance from Earth

Using the original Hipparcos data that was released in 1997, the parallax to the star was given as 6.62000 which means Fum al Samakah distance from Earth is 492.69 light years away from Earth or 151.06 parsecs. If you want that in miles, it is about 2,896,339,935,113,832.81, based on 1 Ly = 5,878,625,373,183.61 miles.

In 2007, Hipparcos data was revised with a new parallax of 7.99000 which puts Fum al Samakah distance from Earth as 408.21 light years or 125.16 parsecs. It should not be taken as though the star is moving closer or further away from Earth. It is purely that the distance was recalculated.

Using the 2007 distance, the star is roughly 25,815,923.26 Astronomical Units from the Earth/Sun give or take a few. An Astronomical Unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun. The number of A.U. is the number of times that the star is from the Earth compared to the Sun. The star's Galacto-Centric Distance is 7,385.00 Parsecs or 24,087.16 Light Years. The Galacto-Centric Distance is the distance from the star to the Centre of the Galaxy which is Sagittarius A*.

Alternative Names and Meanings

• EPIC in EPIC251790677 stands for Ecliptic Plane Input Catalog. It is a publicly available, searchable database of stars and planets. It can be accessed at STSCI.
• The Id of the star in the Yale Bright Star Catalogue is HR8773.
• HIP113889 is the reference name for the star in the Hipparcos Star Catalogue.
• The Id of the star in the Henry Draper catalogue is HD217891. The catalogue was started by the American doctor and has been expanded on over the years.
• The star is catalogued in the Tycho-2 star catalogue as TYC-579-1834-1. The catalogue lists 2 millions stars and its homepage is E.S.A.
• Flamsteed designations such as 4 Piscium (4 Psc) are named after the creator, Sir John Flamsteed. Sir John named the stars in the constellation with a number and its latin name, this star's Flamsteed designation is 4 Piscium. The Flamsteed name can be shortened to 4 Psc.
• The Gould star designation is one that was designed by American astronomer, Benjamin Apthorp Gould. Gould stars are predominantly in the Southern and Equatorial constellations but do appear in northern constellations such as Bootes and Orion. There are no stars with a Gould designation in Ursa Major for example.
• BD number is the number that the star was filed under in the Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung, a star catalogue that was put together by the Bonn Observatory between 1859 to 1903. The star's BD Number is BD +03 4818.

Fum al Samakah Travel Time

The time it will take to travel to this star is dependent on how fast you are going. U.G. has done some calculations as to how long it will take going at differing speeds. A note about the calculations, when I'm talking about years, I'm talking non-leap years only (365 days).

The New Horizons space probe is the fastest probe that we've sent into space at the time of writing. Its primary mission was to visit Pluto which at the time of launch (2006), Pluto was still a planet.

Mach 1 is the speed of sound, Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound. Corncorde before it was retired was the fastest commercial airline across the Atlantic and only one that could do Mach 2.

Description	Speed (m.p.h.)	Time (years)
Walking	4	68,438,103,531.02
Car	120	2,281,270,117.70
Airbus A380	736	371,946,214.84
Mach 1	767.269	356,788,054.94
Mach 2	1,534.54	178,393,794.96
New Horizons	33,000	8,295,527.70
Speed of Light	670,616,629.00	408.21

Fum al Samakah brightness ranges from a magnitude of 4.468 to a magnitude of 4.417 over its variable period. The smaller the magnitude, the brighter the star. Its variable/pulsating period lasts for 0.0 days (variability).

Source of Information

The source of the information if it has a Hip I.D. is from Simbad, the Hipparcos data library based at the University at Strasbourg, France. Hipparcos was a E.S.A. satellite operation launched in 1989 for four years. The items in red are values that I've calculated so they could well be wrong.