Star Stars · In Draco
Eltanin
Eltanin, γ Draconis, is an orange giant in Draco: the 74th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Draco
- Designation
- γ Draconis
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.24 · 74th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- K5III
- Distance
- 154 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- mid June
- Position (J2000)
- RA 17h 57m · Dec +51° 29′
An orange giant, around 4,500 K, like Arcturus and Aldebaran. About 51× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 240 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1872.
When to see it
On the night of Fri 18 Jun 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | Never sets | 01:09 · 90° | — |
| New York EDT | Never sets | 01:04 · 79° | — |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:09 | 01:15 · 40° | 07:20 |
| Sydney GMT+10 | 21:56 | 00:06 · 5° | 02:15 |
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 11° up at its lowest.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Only just. At its highest it is 4° above the northern horizon, so it needs a clear, flat view that way and clean air.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around mid June, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by mid September it is highest in the early evening, and in mid March not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 154 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.24 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 8.2: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.24 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Vega: Eltanin is 15° north-west of it, a fist and a half at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it is circumpolar and never sets; from 35° north it climbs to 74°; from the equator it climbs to 39°; from 35° south it barely clears the horizon, at 4°.
Science
Eltanin’s surface is about 4,500 K, some 1,300 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 640 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 −1.1.
Did you know
Against Vega, the brighter star the hop starts from: Vega looks 7.7 times as bright as Eltanin in our sky, but Vega is 25 light-years away and Eltanin 154 light-years, so side by side Eltanin would give off 5.0 times as much light as Vega.
Science
Eltanin is the 72nd nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Fawaris, about 54 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 19° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 75° south of Eltanin around mid December, 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 20 hours a day and from 35° south about 4. It is 29° from the plane of the Milky Way.