How far away is 61 Ursa Majoris, the home star of the 'Kzinti'?

This star also goes by the names ' HR 4496', 'DM=35 2270' and 'HD 101501'. It is located at RA(2000) = 1h 41m 2.9s and Dec(2000) = +34d 12' 2". It has an apparent visual magnitude of +5.33 and is classified as a G8 V star, slightly cooler than the Sun. It has a proper motion in RA and Dec of -0.012 and -0.388 arc seconds/year respectively. It has a trigonometric parallax of 0.119 arc seconds so its distance is 1/.119 = 8.4 parsecs or 27.2 light years. It also seems to be a member of a binary star system with a separation of 159.3 arc seconds with a star HD 101212. This separation at 8.4 parsecs would correspond to 8.4 x 159 = 1,335 Astronomical Units compared to Pluto's distance of 40 AU. Below is a picture of this star from the Palomar Digital Sky Survey:


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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