Star Stars · In Corvus
Kraz
Kraz, β Corvi, is a yellow bright giant in Corvus: the 109th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Corvus
- Designation
- β Corvi
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.65 · 109th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- G5II
- Distance
- 146 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- late March
- Position (J2000)
- RA 12h 34m · Dec −23° 24′
A yellow bright giant, around 5,600 K, like the Sun. About 35× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 150 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1880.
When to see it
On the night of Sun 28 Mar 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | 21:25 | 01:11 · 15° | 04:58 |
| New York EDT | 20:35 | 01:06 · 26° | 05:37 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:20 | 01:16 · 65° | 07:13 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 18:01 | 01:07 · 80° | 08:14 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 17° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 78° 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 146 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.65 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 8.1: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.65 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Gienah: Kraz is 7.3° south-east of it, three fingers at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 17°; from 35° north it climbs to 32°; from the equator it climbs to 67°; from 35° south it climbs to 78°.
Science
Kraz’s surface is about 5,600 K, some 200 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 520 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 −0.6, about as bright as Canopus looks to us.
Did you know
Against Gienah, the brighter star the hop starts from: the two look about as bright as each other in our sky; Gienah is 154 light-years away and Kraz 146 light-years, so side by side they would give off about as much light.
Science
Kraz is the 70th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Gienah, about 21 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 7.3° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 18° north of Kraz 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 8 hours a day, from 35° north about 10 and from 35° south about 14. It is 39° from the plane of the Milky Way.