Astronomy: brightest stars

This page lists the brightest stars in the night sky, as they appear from Earth. Of the stars in this list, the brightest intrinsically is Rigel (no. 6) – according to Wikipedia, it's "the most luminous star in our local region of the Milky Way".

In the table below, bold print in the Constellation column indicates that this is the brightest star in that constellation. Bold print in the Star column indicates the ones that (in my experience) you are most likely to get asked about – for example, "What's the brightest star in the constellation ... ?"

You might occasionally get asked, "What's the common name for the star Alpha ... ?" (for example, Alpha Orionis – see below). In the majority of cases this is the same as asking what's the brightest star in the constellation in question; but beware, in just over one third of cases it isn't. The system of naming stars Alpha, Beta, etc., within each constellation was devised early in the 17th century by the German astronomer Johann Bayer. Bayer had no means of measuring the brightness of stars accurately, so he just named them according to which of the six magnitude classes they belonged to – which was already established. Within each magnitude class, he generally named them from "top to bottom" as seen from Earth (i.e. the ones closest to the pole came first).

The classic example this anomaly is in the constellation Orion.

The most popular question in this category of course is "What is the brightest star in the night sky?" Any quizzer worth his or her salt will know that the answer to this is "Sirius".

At the bottom of this page I've listed the brightest stars in a couple of other constellations, which don't appear in the main list but which you might get asked about.

Number		Star		Constellation	Location (relative to the ecliptic)
1		Sirius (the Dog Star)		Canis Major (the Greater Dog)	South
2		Canopus		Carina (the Ship’s Keel)	South
3		Rigil Kent (Alpha Centauri)		Centaurus (the Centaur)	South
4		Arcturus		Boötes (the Herdsman)	North
5		Vega		Lyra (the Lyre)	North
6		Rigel		Orion (the Hunter)	North
7		Capella (binary star)		Auriga (the Charioteer)	North
8		Procyon		Canis Minor (the Lesser Dog)	Equator
9		Achernar		Eridanus (the River)	Equator / South
10		Hadar		Centaurus (the Centaur)	South
11		Altair		Aquila (the Eagle)	Equator
12		Aldebaran		Taurus (the Bull)	North
13		Acrux		Crux (the South Cross)	South
14		Betelgeuse (variable)		Orion (the Hunter)	North
15		Antares		Scorpius (the Scorpion)	South
16		Spica		Virgo (the Virgin)	North
17		Pollux		Gemini (the Twins)	North
18		Formalhaut		Piscus Austrinus (the South Fish)	South
19		Deneb		Cygnus (the Swan)	North
20		Mimosa		Crux (the South Cross)	South
21		Regulus		Leo (the Lion)	North
22		Adhara		Canis Major (the Greater Dog)	South
23		Bellatrix		Orion (the Hunter)	North
24		Shaula		Scorpius (the Scorpion)	South
25		El Nath		Taurus (the Bull)	North

Here, as promised, are the brightest stars in a couple of other constellations:

Algol is the brightest star in		Perseus
Polaris (the Pole Star) is the brightest star in		Ursa Minor

© Haydn Thompson 2017–20