Star Stars · In Canis Major
Wezen
Wezen, δ Canis Majoris, is a yellow-white supergiant in Canis Major: the 39th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Canis Major
- Designation
- δ Canis Majoris
- Apparent magnitude
- 1.83 · 39th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- F8Ia
- Distance
- 1,607 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- early January
- Position (J2000)
- RA 07h 08m · Dec −26° 24′
A yellow-white supergiant, around 6,300 K, like Procyon. About 74× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 38,000 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 419.
When to see it
On the night of Tue 5 Jan 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | 20:43 | 00:08 · 12° | 03:33 |
| New York EST | 19:45 | 00:03 · 23° | 04:21 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:17 | 01:13 · 62° | 07:10 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 17:48 | 01:04 · 83° | 08:21 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 14° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes, and well placed: at its highest it passes almost overhead, 81° up, above most of the air’s haze.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around early January, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by early April it is highest in the early evening, and in early October not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 1,607 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 1.83 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 13.3: too faint for anything less than a telescope.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 1.83 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Adhara: Wezen is 3.4° north-east of it, two fingers at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 14°; from 35° north it climbs to 29°; from the equator it climbs to 64°; from 35° south it climbs to 81°.
Science
Wezen’s surface is about 6,300 K, some 500 K hotter than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 460 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 −6.6, brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in our sky.
Did you know
Against Adhara, the brighter star the hop starts from: Adhara looks 1.4 times as bright as Wezen in our sky, but Adhara is 405 light-years away and Wezen 1,607 light-years, so side by side Wezen would give off 12 times as much light as Adhara.
Science
Wezen is the 151st nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Aludra, about 410 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 4.5° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 48° north of Wezen around early July, 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 7 hours a day, from 35° north about 9 and from 35° south about 15. It is 8° from the plane of the Milky Way, inside the band a dark sky shows.