V337 Carinae


V337 Carinae is a K-type bright giant star in the constellation of Carina. It is an irregular variable and has an apparent visual magnitude which varies between 3.36 and 3.44. It is easily visible to the naked eye, except in brightly-lit urban areas.
Benjamin Apthorp Gould listed the star as possibly variable in his 1879 publication Uranometria Argentina, when it was known as q Carinae. It was given its variable star designation, V337 Carinae, nearly 100 years later, in 1973.
V337 Carinae has a spectral class of K2.5II, indicating a bright giant. It is considered likely to be on the red giant branch of stars fusing hydrogen around an inert helium core. However, with a mass nine times that of the Sun, it is also an accepted supernova candidate. Its limb-darkened angular diameter has been measured using interferometry at.
V337 Carinae has two companions listed in multiple star catalogues. Both are 13th-magnitude stars, component B and component C away. Component B is a distant background star, while component C is at about the same distance as V337 Carinae.