Star Stars · In Aries
Hamal
Hamal, α Arietis, is an orange giant in Aries: the 51st brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Aries
- Designation
- α Arietis
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.01 · 51st brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- K2III
- Distance
- 65.8 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- mid October
- Position (J2000)
- RA 02h 07m · Dec +23° 28′
An orange giant, around 4,900 K, like Arcturus and Aldebaran. About 63× 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 in 1960.
When to see it
On the night of Wed 20 Oct 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | 17:00 | 01:12 · 62° | 09:24 |
| New York EDT | 17:39 | 01:07 · 73° | 08:34 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:16 | 01:17 · 68° | 07:19 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 20:17 | 01:08 · 33° | 05:59 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 63° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 32° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around mid October, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by mid January it is highest in the early evening, and in late July not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 65.8 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.01 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 6.3: 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 2.01 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Mirfak: Hamal is 30° south-west of it, about three fists at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 63°; from 35° north it climbs to 78°; from the equator it climbs to 67°; from 35° south it climbs to 32°.
Science
Hamal’s surface is about 4,900 K, some 900 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 590 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 Mirfak, the brighter star the hop starts from: the two look about as bright as each other in our sky; Mirfak is 506 light-years away and Hamal 66 light-years, so side by side Mirfak would give off 73 times as much light as Hamal.
Science
Hamal is the 26th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Sheratan, about 8 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 3.9° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 10.0° south of Hamal around late April, 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 16 hours a day, from 35° north about 14 and from 35° south about 10. It is 36° from the plane of the Milky Way.