• Adhara

  Adhara is a star in Canis Major.

                                               
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  Type            Blue-white bright giant
  Constellation   Canis Major
  Magnitude       1.5
  Spectral type   B2II
  Distance        431 light years
  Double star     components 7.5″ apart
  You need        naked eye

  Known as
  Bayer           ε CMa
  Yale            HR 2618

  More information about Adhara

  Adhara sits below Sirius in Canis Major and is a good deal further away,
  431 light years, which makes it far more luminous than it looks. Its
  name is the Arabic العذارى, "the maidens". About 4.7 million years ago
  it passed within 34 light years of us and shone at magnitude -3.99,
  brighter than Jupiter ever gets and brighter than any star has been in
  human history or is due to be again. It is also the brightest source of
  ultraviolet light in our sky, bright enough that it still has an effect
  on the thin gas drifting through the space around the solar system,
  hundreds of light years away.

  Bayer lettered the stars of each constellation in his Uranometria of
  1603, in order of brightness. He was working from Tycho's magnitudes by
  eye, and the order he recorded is often wrong.

  First published in 1930 by Yale astronomer Frank Schlesinger, and
  maintained since, the Yale Bright Star Catalogue lists every star down
  to magnitude 6.5. It contains 9,110 stars.

  where it is tonight:  skymap.sh/Adhara