Star Stars · In Ursa Major
Phecda
Phecda, γ Ursae Majoris, is a white main-sequence star in Ursa Major: the 87th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Ursa Major
- Designation
- γ Ursae Majoris
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.41 · 87th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- A0V SB
- Distance
- 83.2 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- mid March
- Position (J2000)
- RA 11h 54m · Dec +53° 42′
A white main-sequence star, around 10,000 K, like Sirius and Vega. About 43× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 59 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1943.
When to see it
On the night of Thu 18 Mar 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | Never sets | 00:10 · 88° | — |
| New York EDT | Never sets | 01:05 · 77° | — |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:09 | 01:15 · 38° | 07:22 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 23:28 | 01:06 · 3° | 02:45 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes, on any clear night of the year. From there it never sets: it is circumpolar, circling the pole and still 14° up at its lowest.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Only just. At its highest it is 1° above the northern horizon, so it needs a clear, flat view that way and clean air.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around mid March, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by mid June it is highest in the early evening, and in mid December not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 83.2 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.41 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 6.8: one you would need a dark country sky to see at all.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.41 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Merak: Phecda is 7.9° east of it, a fist at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it is circumpolar and never sets; from 35° north it climbs to 71°; from the equator it climbs to 36°; from 35° south it barely clears the horizon, at 1°.
Science
Phecda’s surface is about 10,000 K, some 4,200 K hotter than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 290 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 0.4, about as bright as Procyon looks to us.
Did you know
Against Merak, the brighter star the hop starts from: the two look about as bright as each other in our sky; Merak is 80 light-years away and Phecda 83 light-years, so side by side they would give off about as much light.
Science
Phecda is the 41st nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Merak, about 12 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 7.9° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 47° south of Phecda around mid 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 22 hours a day and from 35° south about 2. It is 61° from the plane of the Milky Way, well away from the band.