Star Stars · In Phoenix
Ankaa
Ankaa, α Phoenicis, is an orange giant in Phoenix: the 86th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Phoenix
- Designation
- α Phoenicis
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.40 · 86th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- K0III
- Distance
- 84.7 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- late September
- Position (J2000)
- RA 00h 26m · Dec −42° 18′
An orange giant, around 5,200 K, like Arcturus and Aldebaran. About 44× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 62 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1941.
When to see it
On the night of Sat 25 Sep 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | Never rises | ||
| New York EDT | 22:29 | 01:04 · 7° | 03:39 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:21 | 01:15 · 46° | 07:09 |
| Sydney GMT+10 | 15:37 | 00:06 · 82° | 08:34 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- No. From there it never rises: you would have to travel south of 47° north before it cleared the horizon at all.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes, and well placed: at its highest it passes almost overhead, 83° up, above most of the air’s haze.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around late September, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by late December it is highest in the early evening, and in late June not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 84.7 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.40 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 2.40 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Achernar: Ankaa is 19° north-west of it, a spread hand at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it never rises; from 35° north it climbs to 13°; from the equator it climbs to 48°; from 35° south it climbs to 83°.
Science
Ankaa’s surface is about 5,200 K, some 600 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 560 nm, 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 0.3, about as bright as Procyon looks to us.
Did you know
Against Achernar, the brighter star the hop starts from: Achernar looks 6.0 times as bright as Ankaa in our sky; Achernar is 139 light-years away and Ankaa 85 light-years, so side by side Achernar would give off 16 times as much light as Ankaa.
Science
Ankaa is the 42nd nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Diphda, about 40 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 25° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 41° north of Ankaa around late March, when it is highest at noon, in daylight: the weeks either side are its worst time of year. From 35° north it is above the horizon for about 7 hours a day and from 35° south about 17. It is 74° from the plane of the Milky Way, well away from the band.