Alkaid
The end of the Big Dipper’s handle, a hot blue-white star.
Tonight from
Rise, highest point and set are worked out on your device for the place above.
What it is
- Brightness
- Magnitude 1.85, the 40th brightest star in the night sky
- Distance
- 104 light years
- Kind of star
- Blue-white main-sequence star, spectral type B3 V
- Light it gives out
- About 160 times the Sun’s, in visible light
- Constellation
- Ursa Major, where it is η Ursae Majoris
- Catalogue number
- HIP 67301
Figures from HYG database 4.1 (Hipparcos, Yale Bright Star and Gliese catalogues), CC BY-SA 4.0. All sources
Near it in the sky
- Whirlpool GalaxyA galaxy in Canes Venatici, about three fingers away.
- Pinwheel GalaxyA galaxy in Ursa Major, about three fingers away.
- MizarA white main-sequence star in Ursa Major, about three fingers away.
- AliothA white star in Ursa Major, about a fist away.
- M 3A globular cluster in Canes Venatici, about a hand span away.