Star Stars · In Pegasus
Matar
Matar, η Pegasi, is a yellow bright giant in Pegasus: the 165th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Pegasus
- Designation
- η Pegasi
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.93 · 165th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- G2II-III
- Distance
- 214 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- late August
- Position (J2000)
- RA 22h 43m · Dec +30° 13′
A yellow bright giant, around 5,800 K, like the Sun. About 27× 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 1812.
When to see it
On the night of Mon 30 Aug 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | 16:00 | 01:08 · 69° | 10:17 |
| New York EDT | 17:03 | 01:03 · 80° | 09:03 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:12 | 01:14 · 61° | 07:16 |
| Sydney GMT+10 | 19:38 | 00:05 · 26° | 04:31 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 70° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 25° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around late August, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by late November it is highest in the early evening, and in late May not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 214 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.93 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 8.9: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.93 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Scheat: Matar is 5.0° north-west of it, three fingers at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 70°; from 35° north it climbs to 85°; from the equator it climbs to 60°; from 35° south it climbs to 25°.
Science
Matar’s surface is about 5,800 K, close to the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 500 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 −1.2.
Did you know
Against Scheat, the brighter star the hop starts from: Scheat looks 1.6 times as bright as Matar in our sky; Scheat is 196 light-years away and Matar 214 light-years, so side by side Scheat would give off 1.3 times as much light as Matar.
Science
Matar is the 88th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Scheat, about 26 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 5.0° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 35° south of Matar around late February, 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 18 hours a day, from 35° north about 15 and from 35° south about 9. It is 25° from the plane of the Milky Way.