Pi Serpentis is a blue main sequence dwarf star that can be located in the constellation of Serpens. The description is based on the spectral class. The star can be seen with the naked eye, that is, you don't need a telescope/binoculars to see it.
Pi Serpentis (Pi. Ser) is the Bayer Classification for the star. The Id of the star in the Yale Bright Star Catalogue is HR5972. HIP78554 is the reference name for the star in the Hipparcos Star Catalogue. The Id of the star in the Henry Draper catalogue is HD143894.
Flamsteed designations are named after the creator, Sir John Flamsteed. Sir John numbered the stars in the constellation with a number and the latin name, this star's Flamsteed designation is 44 Serpentis with it shortened to 44 Ser.
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+23 2886.
More details on star alternative names can be found at Star Names .
The location of the 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 star is compared to the celestial equator and is expressed in degrees. For Pi Serpentis, the location is 16h 02m 17.69 and +22° 48` 15.8 .
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 23.60 ± 0.21 miliarcseconds/year towards the north and 4.03 ± 0.26 miliarcseconds/year east if we saw them in the horizon. The Radial Velocity, that is the speed at which the star is moving away/towards us is -28.20000 km/s with an error of about 4.20 km/s .
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 31.41 that I have given is based on the value in the Simbad Hipparcos Extended Catalogue at the University of Strasbourg from 2012.
Pi Serpentis has a spectral type of A3V. This means the star is a blue main sequence dwarf star. The star is 7,371.00 Parsecs from the Galactic Centre or terms of Light Years is 24,041.50 s. The star has a B-V Colour Index of 0.06 which means the star's temperature has been calculated using information from Morgans @ Uni.edu at being 8,815 Kelvin.
Pi Serpentis Radius has been calculated as being 2.36 times bigger than the Sun.The Sun's radius is 695,800km, therefore the star's radius is an estimated 1,640,332.56.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 2.39. The figure is derived at by using the formula from SDSS and has been known to produce widely incorrect figures. The star's Iron Abundance is 0.38 with an error value of 9.99 Fe/H with the Sun has a value of 1 to put it into context.
Pi Serpentis has an apparent magnitude of 4.82 which is how bright we see the star from Earth. Apparent Magnitude is also known as Visual Magnitude. If you used the 1997 Parallax value, you would get an absolute magnitude of 1.15 If you used the 2007 Parallax value, you would get an absolute magnitude of 1.12. 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.
Using the original Hipparcos data that was released in 1997, the parallax to the star was given as 18.42 which gave the 