Star Stars · In Eridanus
Zaurak
Zaurak, γ Eridani, is a red giant in Eridanus: the 169th brightest star in the night sky.
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- Constellation
- Eridanus
- Designation
- γ Eridani
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.97 · 169th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- M1IIIb Ca-1
- Distance
- 203 light-years
- Highest at midnight
- mid November
- Position (J2000)
- RA 03h 58m · Dec −13° 31′
A red giant, around 3,600 K, like Betelgeuse and Antares. About 26× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. Gives off about 210 times the Sun's visible light. The light you are seeing left around 1823.
When to see it
On the night of Wed 18 Nov 2026, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT | 19:18 | 00:07 · 25° | 04:56 |
| New York EST | 18:50 | 00:02 · 36° | 05:14 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:15 | 01:12 · 75° | 07:10 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 18:28 | 01:03 · 70° | 07:39 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 26° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 69° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around mid November, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by mid February it is highest in the early evening, and in mid August not until the hours before dawn.
- How far away is it, and how bright?
- It is 203 light-years away, and shines at magnitude 2.97 in our sky. From that far, the Sun would be a star of magnitude 8.8: too faint for the eye, a target for binoculars.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- The naked eye, even from a city: at magnitude 2.97 it is brighter than the faintest stars a city sky still shows, about magnitude 4.5.
Look for
Start from Cursa: Zaurak is 19° south-west of it, a spread hand at arm’s length.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 26°; from 35° north it climbs to 41°; from the equator it climbs to 76°; from 35° south it climbs to 69°.
Science
Zaurak’s surface is about 3,600 K, some 2,200 K cooler than the Sun’s 5,772 K, so its light is strongest at about 800 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 −1.0.
Did you know
Against Cursa, the brighter star the hop starts from: the two look about as bright as each other in our sky; Cursa is 89 light-years away and Zaurak 203 light-years, so side by side Zaurak would give off 4.3 times as much light as Cursa.
Science
Zaurak is the 87th nearest to us of the 156 stars on these pages with a measured distance. Its nearest neighbour among them in space is Nihal, about 83 light-years from it; on our sky the two are 23° apart.
Look for
The Sun passes 33° north of Zaurak around mid 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 10 hours a day, from 35° north about 11 and from 35° south about 13. It is 44° from the plane of the Milky Way.