Star Stars · In Cetus
Menkar
Menkar, α Ceti, is a red giant in Cetus: the 96th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Cetus
- Designation
- α Ceti
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.54 · 96th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- M2III
- Distance
- 249 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- early November
- Position (J2000)
- RA 03h 02m · Dec +04° 05′
A red giant, around 3,400 K, like Betelgeuse and Antares. About 38× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 470 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1777.
When to see it
On the night of Tue 3 Nov 2026, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | 17:51 | 00:11 · 43° | 06:31 |
| New York EST | 17:52 | 00:05 · 53° | 06:19 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:17 | 01:16 · 87° | 07:15 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 19:19 | 01:07 · 52° | 06:55 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 44° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 51° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around early November, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by early February it is highest in the early evening, and in early August not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 249 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.54 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 9.2: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.54 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Hamal: Menkar is 24° south-east of it, a spread hand at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 44°; from 35° north it climbs to 59°; from the equator it climbs to 86°; from 35° south it climbs to 51°.
Science
Menkar’s surface is about 3,400 K, some 2,400 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 850 nm, in the infrared, past the red 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 −1.9, brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in our sky.
Did you know
Against Hamal, the brighter star the hop starts from: Hamal looks 1.6 times as bright as Menkar in our sky, but Hamal is 66 light-years away and Menkar 249 light-years, so side by side Menkar would give off 8.8 times as much light as Hamal.
Science
Menkar is the 93rd nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Mira, about 79 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 13° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 13° north of Menkar around early May, 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 13 hours a day, from 35° north about 12 and from 35° south about 12. It is 46° from the plane of the Milky Way, well away from the band.