Star Stars · In Corvus
Algorab
Algorab, δ Corvi, is a blue-white main-sequence star in Corvus: the 167th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Corvus
- Designation
- δ Corvi
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.94 · 167th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- B9.5V
- Distance
- 86.9 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- late March
- Position (J2000)
- RA 12h 30m · Dec −16° 31′
A blue-white main-sequence star, around 11,000 K, like Rigel and Spica. About 27× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 40 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1939.
When to see it
On the night of Sat 27 Mar 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | 19:40 | 00:11 · 22° | 05:41 |
| New York EDT | 20:06 | 01:05 · 33° | 06:05 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:18 | 01:16 · 72° | 07:13 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 18:22 | 01:07 · 73° | 07:52 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 23° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 72° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around late March, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by late June it is highest in the early evening, and in late December not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 86.9 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.94 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 6.9: one you would need a dark country sky to see at all.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.94 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Gienah: Algorab is 3.5° east of it, three fingers at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 23°; from 35° north it climbs to 38°; from the equator it climbs to 73°; from 35° south it climbs to 72°.
Science
Algorab’s surface is about 11,000 K, some 5,200 K hotter than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 260 nm, in the ultraviolet, past the violet end of what the eye can see, where the Sun’s is strongest at 500 nm. Moved to 33 light-years, the distance astronomers compare stars at, it would shine at magnitude 0.8, about as bright as Acrux looks to us.
Did you know
Against Gienah, the brighter star the hop starts from: Gienah looks 1.4 times as bright as Algorab in our sky; Gienah is 154 light-years away and Algorab 87 light-years, so side by side Gienah would give off 4.4 times as much light as Algorab.
Science
Algorab is the 44th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Kulou, about 40 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 23° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 12° north of Algorab around late September, when it is highest at noon, in daylight: the weeks either side are its worst time of year. From 50° north it is above the horizon for about 9 hours a day, from 35° north about 10 and from 35° south about 14. It is 46° from the plane of the Milky Way, well away from the band.