Star Stars · In Vela
Markeb
Markeb, κ Velorum, is a blue-white subgiant in Vela: the 92nd brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Vela
- Designation
- κ Velorum
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.47 · 92nd brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- B2IV
- Distance
- 572 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- early February
- Position (J2000)
- RA 09h 22m · Dec −55° 01′
A blue-white subgiant, around 26,000 K, like Rigel and Spica. About 41× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 2,700 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1454.
When to see it
On the night of Mon 8 Feb 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | Never rises | ||
| New York EST | Never rises | ||
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:22 | 01:13 · 34° | 07:04 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 14:08 | 01:04 · 69° | 12:00 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- No. From there it never rises: you would have to travel south of 34° north before it cleared the horizon at all.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes, on any clear night of the year — it is circumpolar from there and never quite sets, though at its lowest it skims the horizon, where trees and haze will hide it.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around early February, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by early May it is highest in the early evening, and in early November not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 572 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.47 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 11.0: too faint for anything less than a telescope.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.47 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Aspidiske: Markeb is 4.3° north of it, three fingers at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north and 35° north it never rises; from the equator it climbs to 35°; from 35° south it is circumpolar and never sets.
Science
Markeb’s surface is about 26,000 K, some 20,200 K hotter than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 110 nm, in the ultraviolet, past the violet end of what the eye can see, 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 −3.8, brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in our sky.
Did you know
Against Aspidiske, the brighter star the hop starts from: Aspidiske looks 1.3 times as bright as Markeb in our sky; Aspidiske is 766 light-years away and Markeb 572 light-years, so side by side Aspidiske would give off 2.3 times as much light as Markeb.
Science
Markeb is the 137th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Avior, about 100 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 9.2° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 64° north of Markeb around early August, when it is highest at noon, in daylight: the weeks either side are its worst time of year. It is 4° from the plane of the Milky Way, inside the band a dark sky shows.