Arcturus · magnitude -0.05 · 37 light-years · Boötes.
The brightest star north of the celestial equator, and unmistakably orange. Follow the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle 31° past Alkaid and you cannot miss it. It is a halo star crossing our disc at 122 km/s — a visitor, not a neighbour.
Spica · magnitude 0.98 · 250 light-years · Virgo.
Keep the same curve going another 33°. Blue-white where Arcturus is orange, and a close pair of B stars whipping round each other every four days, distorted into eggs by the pull.
Regulus · magnitude 1.36 · 79 light-years · Leo.
The full stop under Leo’s backwards question mark. It lies 0.46° from the ecliptic — closer than any other first-magnitude star — so the Moon and the planets keep walking across it.
Denebola · magnitude 2.14 · 36 light-years · Leo.
The Lion’s tail, 24.6° behind Regulus, and the third corner of the Spring Triangle with Arcturus and Spica. Faintest of the five here, and the one that proves your sky is decent.
Polaris · magnitude 1.97 · 450 light-years · Ursa Minor.
Always north, always at the altitude of your latitude, and only the 48th brightest star in the sky. Use it to orient everything else.
Vega · magnitude 0.03 · 25 light-years · Lyra.
Nearly overhead from mid-northern latitudes, and spinning at 88% of break-up speed — squashed, with a 2,000 K difference between its equator and its poles. We happen to see it pole-on.
Deneb · magnitude 1.25 · 1,400–2,600 light-years · Cygnus.
The tail of the Swan, 23.9° from Vega, and the most distant star most people ever look at. Its parallax is smaller than the error bars on it, which is why the distance is a range and not a number.
Altair · magnitude 0.76 · 16.7 light-years · Aquila.
The southern corner of the Summer Triangle, 34.2° from Vega. It turns once in 8.9 hours and is 22% wider across the equator than pole to pole — the first star after the Sun to be imaged as a resolved disc.
Antares · magnitude 1.06 · 550 light-years · Scorpius.
The heart of the Scorpion, low in the south and the reddest bright star in the sky. About 680 solar radii: put it where the Sun is and its surface would swallow Mars.
Rasalhague · magnitude 2.08 · 48 light-years · Ophiuchus.
The head of the Serpent-Bearer — the thirteenth zodiac constellation, which the Sun genuinely spends eighteen days in and no horoscope mentions.
Fomalhaut · magnitude 1.17 · 25 light-years · Piscis Austrinus.
Alone in a large empty stretch of southern sky — the Arabs called it the Solitary One, and from 40°N it never gets above 20°. It has a vast debris ring, photographed by Hubble.
Alpheratz · magnitude 2.07 · 97 light-years · Andromeda.
The north-east corner of the Great Square of Pegasus, and simultaneously Andromeda’s head — the one star the IAU had to assign to a single constellation after centuries of sharing.
Mirach · magnitude 2.07 · 200 light-years · Andromeda.
Warm-orange, 14.5° from Alpheratz, and the stepping stone to the Andromeda Galaxy: two hops of 3.9° to the north-west and you are there.
Algenib · magnitude 2.83 · 470 light-years · Pegasus.
The south-east corner of the Great Square, and the nearest bright marker to RA 0h — the point where the Sun crosses the equator each March.
Hamal · magnitude 2.01 · 66 light-years · Aries.
Aries held the vernal equinox two thousand years ago. Precession has since dragged that point 30° west into Pisces, and astronomers still call it the First Point of Aries out of sheer habit.
Sirius · magnitude -1.44 · 8.6 light-years · Canis Major.
The brightest star in the night sky, and bright mostly because it is close. Follow Orion’s Belt 21.7° to the south-east. It has a white dwarf companion of one solar mass squeezed into an Earth-sized body.
Betelgeuse · magnitude 0.45 · 550–700 light-years · Orion.
Orion’s red-orange shoulder, a supergiant near the end of its life. It normally wanders between magnitude 0.0 and 1.0; in 2019–20 it sank to 1.6 behind a cloud of its own dust.
Rigel · magnitude 0.18 · 860 light-years · Orion.
The blue-white foot, 18.6° from Betelgeuse and at 12,100 K more than three times its temperature. Hold the two against each other: colour is a thermometer.
Capella · magnitude 0.08 · 43 light-years · Auriga.
Nearly overhead from 40°N, and as close to magnitude zero as the winter sky gets — the star to calibrate your eye on. It is two yellow giants orbiting every 104 days, too close ever to split.
Aldebaran · magnitude 0.87 · 65 light-years · Taurus.
The eye of the Bull, 21.8° north-west along Orion’s Belt. It looks like the brightest member of the Hyades cluster and is not — the cluster is 153 light-years away, more than twice as far.