Star Stars · In Draco
Athebyne
Athebyne, η Draconis, is a yellow giant in Draco: the 121st brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Draco
- Designation
- η Draconis
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.73 · 121st brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- G8III
- Distance
- 92.1 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- late May
- Position (J2000)
- RA 16h 24m · Dec +61° 31′
A yellow giant, around 5,400 K, like the Sun. About 32× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 54 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1934.
When to see it
On the night of Tue 25 May 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | Never sets | 01:11 · 80° | — |
| New York EDT | Never sets | 01:06 · 69° | — |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:07 | 01:16 · 30° | 07:25 |
| Sydney GMT+10 | Never rises | ||
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes, on any clear night of the year. From there it never sets: it is circumpolar, circling the pole and still 22° up at its lowest.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- No. From there it never rises: you would have to travel north of 28° south before it cleared the horizon at all.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around late May, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by late August it is highest in the early evening, and in late February not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 92.1 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.73 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 7.1: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.73 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Kochab: Athebyne is 15° south-east of it, a fist and a half at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north and 35° north it is circumpolar and never sets; from the equator it climbs to 28°; from 35° south it never rises.
Science
Athebyne’s surface is about 5,400 K, some 400 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 540 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 0.5, about as bright as Achernar looks to us.
Did you know
Against Kochab, the brighter star the hop starts from: Kochab looks 1.8 times as bright as Athebyne in our sky; Kochab is 131 light-years away and Athebyne 92 light-years, so side by side Kochab would give off 3.7 times as much light as Athebyne.
Science
Athebyne is the 50th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Alcor, about 37 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 24° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 78° south of Athebyne around late November, when it is highest at noon, in daylight: the weeks either side are its worst time of year. It is 41° from the plane of the Milky Way.