Star Stars · In Centaurus
Muhlifain
Muhlifain, γ Centauri, is a white subgiant in Centaurus: the 66th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Centaurus
- Designation
- γ Centauri
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.20 · 66th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- A1IV
- Distance
- 130 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- late March
- Position (J2000)
- RA 12h 42m · Dec −48° 58′
A white subgiant, around 9,800 K, like Sirius and Vega. About 52× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 180 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1896.
When to see it
On the night of Tue 30 Mar 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | Never rises | ||
| New York EDT | 00:39 | 01:05 · 0° | 01:31 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:23 | 01:16 · 40° | 07:09 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 15:45 | 01:07 · 75° | 10:28 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- No. From there it never rises: you would have to travel south of 41° north before it cleared the horizon at all.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 76° up in the south.
- 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 130 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.20 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 7.8: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.20 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Gacrux: Muhlifain is 8.3° north of it, a fist at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it never rises; from 35° north it barely clears the horizon, at 6°; from the equator it climbs to 41°; from 35° south it climbs to 76°.
Science
Muhlifain’s surface is about 9,800 K, some 4,000 K hotter than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 300 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 −0.8.
Did you know
Against Gacrux, the brighter star the hop starts from: Gacrux looks 1.8 times as bright as Muhlifain in our sky; Gacrux is 89 light-years away and Muhlifain 130 light-years, so side by side they would give off about as much light.
Science
Muhlifain is the 63rd nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Gacrux, about 44 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 8.3° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 40° north of Muhlifain around late September, when it is highest at noon, in daylight: the weeks either side are its worst time of year. From 35° north it is above the horizon for about 5 hours a day and from 35° south about 19. It is 14° from the plane of the Milky Way.