Science | September 27, 2024

How to Find the Ten Brightest Stars in the Night Sky

From Aldebaran to Vega, these gleaming beacons dazzle Northern Hemisphere viewers at various times of the year and provide a useful entry point into amateur astronomy

The Milky Way lights up a night sky accented by the bright stars of the “summer triangle.” Alan Dyer / VW Pics / UIG via Getty Images

Carlyn Kranking

Assistant Editor, Science and Innovation

Beginning to familiarize yourself with the night sky can feel daunting—with so many pinpricks of light above, parsing the constellations or identifying individual stars can be a lofty task. One starting point is to learn to find the brightest ones.

In a rural sky dense with stars, the brightest serve as helpful signposts to orient yourself. And even just outside of cities, these luminous objects can compete with light pollution.

“You can see the brightest stars even from suburban locations,” says amateur astronomer Bob King, who is based in Duluth, Minnesota, and writes a column on skywatching for the Duluth News Tribune. “You don’t have to go to a rural countryside location to see those. But I always encourage people to do that, if possible.”

These stars are associated with various times of year, and being able to identify them can help you clock the shifting of the seasons and visualize how the Earth is moving through space. “We have certain flowers that appear, certain kinds of weather in different seasons, and we come to love those things,” King adds. “The same thing applies to the stars.”

But perhaps most of all, recognizing the brightest stars can point you to a handful of skyward sights. Each of them has the distinction of being the brightest or second brightest in its constellation, acting as a great celestial landmark. “All these bright stars are portals to so many things,” King says.

Each star is also a potential spark for amateur astronomers’ curiosity. Stare long enough at Betelgeuse and you might begin to wonder why it appears red, or why Vega gleams sapphire blue. Observing the colors of stars on this list can provide a hint to their temperatures—with hotter stars appearing blue-white and cooler stars glowing red or orange.

These stars are ranked based on their apparent magnitude, or how bright they seem from our vantage point on Earth. This is influenced not only by how much light the star actually emits, but also by how close it is to our solar system. Some of the farthest stars on this list are much more luminous than the nearer ones, but they look to be fainter due to their distance.

Technically, our own sun is the brightest star in our skies—but it doesn’t count for this list. After the sun has set, a new suite of shining beacons appear. Here are the ten brightest, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere, with tips on how to spot them.

Sirius

Known as the “dog star” for its place amid the constellation Canis Major, Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. The vivid star is one of the nearest to Earth, at just 8.6 light-years away. It also has some company: A small, white dwarf called Sirius B orbits the dog star, and because of its smaller nature, astronomers have termed this companion “the pup.”

Sirius is a natural stargazing target because of how bright it appears. But it also puts on a stunning show in color, especially when viewed through binoculars. All stars appear to twinkle as their light gets distorted in Earth’s atmosphere. In some cases, the atmosphere can act like a prism, refracting colors out of a star’s light. The effect is strongest when stars appear low on the horizon.

“Sirius is by far the most fabulous twinkler, and it can look like a firecracker,” King says. “You get a yellow Sirius, deep red Sirius, blue Sirius—and it all happens in a fraction of a second. It’s a kaleidoscope of colors.”

How to find Sirius: Sirius is best seen after sunset in winter. Follow the three stars of Orion’s belt to the east, and you’ll see Sirius as a bright beacon. Along with the red star Betelgeuse at Orion’s shoulder and Procyon in Canis Minor, Sirius forms part of an easily identifiable star pattern called the “winter triangle.”

Arcturus

Arctaurus — From the Big Dipper in the center of this photo, follow the handle out in an arc to find Arcturus, which lies above the mountains near the horizon. Alan Dyer / VW Pics / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Because Sirius is seen when looking toward the south, the orange star Arcturus earns the distinction of being the brightest star in northern skies. Arcturus is 25 times the diameter of the sun, but its surface is several thousand degrees cooler. The star is moving rapidly, racing toward the constellation Virgo at nearly 324,000 miles per hour.

Arcturus was once central to a public demonstration of scientific and technological progress at the World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1933. Astronomers had recently calculated that Arcturus is approximately 40 light-years away—and the last time Chicago had hosted a World’s Fair was 40 years prior. This meant that, feasibly, light from the star that reached Earth during the 1933 fair was emitted around the first time Chicago was home to such a spectacle. (Now, astronomers know Arcturus is 36.7 light-years away.)

To power the fair’s lights, four observatories around the United States focused the star’s light onto photocells, a new technology at the time. The photocells converted that light to an electric current and transported it via telegraph lines to flip a switch that illuminated Chicago.

How to find Arcturus: Located in the northern constellation Boötes, the herdsman, the star can be seen from spring to fall in the United States. Beginning at the Big Dipper in Ursa Major, follow the handle in an arc away from the dipper’s “bowl,” and it will point toward the gleaming Arcturus. Continue along that same imaginary trajectory, and you’ll find Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo (though it doesn’t quite make this top ten list).

Vega

At roughly 25 light-years away, Vega is a rapidly spinning star in the constellation Lyra. A fixture of the summer sky for Northern Hemisphere viewers, Vega has associations with warmer months for many astronomers. “When I see the star Vega coming up in the east on a late winter night … it gives me hope that the end of winter might be coming,” King says.

On cosmic timescales, Vega is a young star at around 455 million years old—about one-tenth the age of our own sun. But it’s aging much more quickly. As a bigger star, it will burn through its fuel faster than our sun will, so Vega is already about halfway through its lifetime. Vega moves in a different plane than the planets in our solar system—so when we view it, we see its pole.

Though the North Star is currently Polaris, the star closest to the northern pole will be Vega by approximately 14,000 C.E.—that’s because the Earth’s axis wobbles over a period of roughly 26,000 years, slowly shifting to point at different celestial objects. Vega was the North Star around 12,000 B.C.E., and in time, it will hold that title once again.

Besides our own sun, Vega was the first star to be photographed, with a 20-minute daguerreotype exposure taken at Harvard College Observatory in 1850. It was also the first star to have its spectrum measured, revealing information about which elements it contains.

How to find Vega: Blue-white Vega, in the Lyra constellation, forms one of the three points of the “summer triangle,” along with Altair and Deneb. From mid-northern latitudes, such as around New York City, Vega can be seen on any night of the year. Go farther north, and the star never sets.

Capella

Derived from the Latin word capra, meaning goat, Capella is known as the “goat star.” It lies 42.8 light-years away in the lesser-known constellation Auriga and sits near a triangle of stars referred to as “the kids,” representing Capella’s celestial offspring.

As evidenced by its distinctive golden hue, Capella is a yellow star, like our own sun—and it’s the brightest yellow star in the night sky.

Though it appears as a single point of light to the naked eye, Capella is a system of four separate stars: two yellow giants named Capella Aa and Capella Ab, as well as two red dwarf stars called Capella H and Capella L.

When Capella first appears in the fall, it’s low on the horizon, causing it to twinkle in fabulous colors, flashing red and green. Capella is also one of the brightest X-ray emission sources in the sky, according to NASA.

How to find Capella: Capella can be seen in the constellation Auriga, the charioteer, between Taurus and Gemini in autumn and winter skies. From the Big Dipper, trace a line away from the handle through the two stars that form the top of the dipper’s bowl, and that will point at Capella. It holds the northernmost spot in the “winter circle” (or “winter hexagon”), a pattern of some of the brightest stars visible during the cold months.

Rigel

This relatively young, blue star is the brightest one in the constellation Orion, glowing at the hunter’s left foot. Rigel is the most distant star on this list at about 870 light-years away—so to still appear so bright in our sky, it has to be strong. The star’s powerhouse status comes from the fact that it’s especially hot and energetic—it releases roughly 120,000 times more energy than our sun and is more than twice as hot.

Despite Rigel being much younger than the sun, it is a type of star known as a blue supergiant, which means it has burned through most of the hydrogen in its core and is entering the later part of its life. One day, it will explode as a supernova.

Rigel also illuminates the nearby Witch Head Nebula. The cloud of celestial gas appears blue in part because of the star’s light, but also because its dust grains scatter light in blue wavelengths—just like the molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, which give our daytime sky its cerulean hue.

How to find Rigel: In the constellation Orion, Rigel is at the bottom right from Earth’s perspective, representing the hunter’s left foot. It can be easily seen as the brightest star below the constellation’s characteristic three-star belt.

Procyon

In large part, Procyon earns its place among the brightest stars in Northern Hemisphere skies because of its proximity to our planet—the two-star system is less than 12 light-years away. Procyon A and its much smaller white dwarf companion, Procyon B, orbit each other and appear as a single point of light to the naked eye, the brightest one in the Canis Minor constellation.

Procyon is also called the “little dog star,” and its name derives from Greek, meaning “before the dog.” This description was a nod to how Procyon rises before Sirius—and while this is still true for many skywatchers, those in the Southern U.S. and at similar latitudes throughout the world now see the stars appear in the opposite order, with Sirius rising first. This shift is a result of Earth’s slow wobbling on its axis, known as precession.

Canis Minor and Canis Major represent Orion’s two hunting dogs, which trail him across winter skies. Canis Minor has only two notable stars bright enough to be seen with the naked eye; alongside Procyon is Gomeisa, which shines at the dog’s neck.

How to find Procyon: Along with Sirius and Betelgeuse, Procyon lies in the “winter triangle.” The bright star sits higher than Sirius in the sky.

Betelgeuse

Known as the celestial hunter Orion’s shoulder, the red supergiant Betelgeuse is one of the most recognizable stars in the sky. The huge star is one of the largest known, and though it’s around 700 light-years away, it would stretch past the orbit of Jupiter if placed at the center of our solar system. The aging star appears with an orange tint, even to the naked eye.

Betelgeuse might also be familiar from the news in recent years: Its brightness dropped sharply in 2019—an event termed the “great dimming”—and astronomers thought it might soon explode. While that proved not to be the case, the volatile star has continued to periodically change in brightness—but on the whole, astronomers agree it still has up to 100,000 years of burning left before it goes supernova.

The star’s variable nature has likely persisted for centuries: Despite being the second-brightest star in Orion, Betelgeuse has the Latin name Alpha Orionis—and the “alpha” moniker is reserved for a constellation’s brightest star. This has led to speculation that in 1603, when German astronomer Johann Bayer gave Betelgeuse its Latin name, the star might have shone brighter than Rigel, which out-ranks it on this list today.

How to find Betelgeuse: First, identify the trio of stars that make up Orion’s belt. Imagine a perpendicular line runs through the center star, then follow it up to the bright, red-looking orb above. Betelgeuse is Orion’s right shoulder—on the left side, as seen from Earth—alongside the blue-white star Bellatrix, which forms the hunter’s other shoulder.

Altair

Located about 16.7 light-years away in the eagle constellation, Aquila, the star Altair derives its name from Arabic and means “flying eagle.” On either side of the bright beacon is a dimmer companion; these are called Tarazed and Alshain.

Despite its massive size of roughly 1.6 to 2 times the width of our sun, Altair is known for spinning rapidly. It takes roughly nine to ten hours for the star to complete one rotation, and it turns at a speed about 100 times faster than our sun does. By spinning in this intense way, Altair has become partially flattened, appearing sort of like an M&M—or an egg. This leads to a phenomenon called gravity darkening, in which the star’s poles shine brighter than its equator. The same thing happens to the rapidly spinning Vega.

How to find Altair: Altair is the southernmost of the three bright stars that make up the “summer triangle” pattern and is best seen in the Northern Hemisphere from May through September.

Aldebaran

With its characteristic orange glow, Aldebaran is a large star located about 65 light-years away in the constellation Taurus.

If put at the center of our solar system, Aldebaran—with its diameter 44 times that of the sun—would stretch beyond Mercury’s orbit. But the star has a similar mass to our sun, because the gasses within it are much more sparse.

The enormous star might also be host to a gargantuan exoplanet—but astronomers aren’t entirely sure. The theorized world, called Aldebaran b, would be roughly six times the size of Jupiter—and scorching hot. Orbiting such a star might send the planet’s surface temperature up to 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit. Though Aldebaran b’s existence was supposedly confirmed in 2015, a follow-up study in 2019 threw it into question once more.

From our point of view, Aldebaran lies in the ecliptic, or the path along the sky that the sun, moon and planets appear to take. For that reason, these objects periodically approach or cover up the bright star, creating exciting moments for astronomers and astrophotographers.

How to find Aldebaran: Aldebaran is the top-left point of the “V” shape that marks the head of Taurus, the bull. The star represents the celestial ruminant’s eye and is best seen during the winter months, though it will stick around in the sky through mid-May. To find Taurus, begin with the three-star belt of Orion, and follow it to the right—Aldebaran is the next bright star, located between the hunter and the Pleiades star cluster, which can look to the naked eye like a very small version of the Big Dipper.

Antares

The relatively cool star Antares glows in orange-red—and for this reason, it’s often confused with Mars. But the star’s name—Greek for “rival of Ares” (the counterpart of the Roman god Mars)—makes it clear that this star stands out in its own right.

One of the largest known stars, Antares clocks a diameter around 700 times longer than our sun’s. If put at the center of our solar system, it would swallow up all four of the inner planets—including Mars—and nearly reach the orbit of Jupiter. And that’s only the part of the star seen in visible light—when viewed at radio wavelengths, Antares appears even bigger.

At roughly 600 light-years away, it is a binary system, with a companion star called Antares B, but the light of this smaller star is so dim compared to the main fireball that it takes a very strong telescope to resolve it from the ground.

How to find Antares: Antares is a summer star at the heart of the constellation Scorpius. At northern latitudes, it might appear low in the sky—and above about 63 degrees north, the star never goes above the horizon, so you’ll be out of luck trying to spot it.