Star Stars · In Leo
Ras Elased Australis
Ras Elased Australis, ε Leonis, is a yellow bright giant in Leo: the 171st brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Leo
- Designation
- ε Leonis
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.97 · 171st brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- G0II
- Distance
- 247 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- mid February
- Position (J2000)
- RA 09h 46m · Dec +23° 46′
A yellow bright giant, around 6,000 K, like the Sun. About 26× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 310 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1779.
When to see it
On the night of Sun 14 Feb 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | 15:56 | 00:08 · 62° | 08:21 |
| New York EST | 16:36 | 00:03 · 73° | 07:30 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:12 | 01:14 · 68° | 07:15 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 20:14 | 01:05 · 32° | 05:55 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 64° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 31° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around mid February, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by mid May it is highest in the early evening, and in mid November not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 247 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.97 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 2.97 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Algieba: Ras Elased Australis is 8.8° north-west of it, a fist at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 64°; from 35° north it climbs to 79°; from the equator it climbs to 66°; from 35° south it climbs to 31°.
Science
Ras Elased Australis’s surface is about 6,000 K, some 200 K hotter than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 480 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 −1.4, about as bright as Sirius looks to us.
Did you know
Against Algieba, the brighter star the hop starts from: Algieba looks 2.4 times as bright as Ras Elased Australis in our sky, but Algieba is 130 light-years away and Ras Elased Australis 247 light-years, so side by side Ras Elased Australis would give off 1.5 times as much light as Algieba.
Science
Ras Elased Australis is the 92nd nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Algieba, about 120 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 8.8° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 9.7° south of Ras Elased Australis around mid August, 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 16 hours a day, from 35° north about 14 and from 35° south about 10. It is 48° from the plane of the Milky Way, well away from the band.