The star V396 Pup (RA = 07 49 08.3, Dec = -36 08 03.3) is an object that recently caught my interest. It has a very small parallax of 0.0816 ± 0.0163 mas but a surprisingly bright V-band magnitude of 8.81. This suggests it is a highly luminous and thus massive and young star. However, its galactic latitude of around -5 degrees suggests a location far from the galactic disc and instead in the galactic halo, which is populated by old stars. Therefore, it seems like it could be a runaway star.
I attempted to calculate a trajectory for this star using a module for Python called galpy, and found it to cross Z=0 (exactly in the middle of the galactic disk) 78 Myr ago and at coordinates RA = 206.81 and Dec = -62.14 and 18.7 kpc away, which suggests it originates from an unobservable region of the Milky Way (due to dust extinction).
Spectroscopy would be very valuable to confirm the true nature of this star, especially to determine its metallicity and further constrain stellar parameters. Are there any southern observers able/willing to give it a shot?
Edited by VY Canis Majoris, 12 December 2024 - 01:33 PM.
