• Fomalhaut Fomalhaut is a star in Piscis Austrinus. ##### ########### ############### ################# ################# ################# ############### ########### ##### Type White main-sequence star Constellation Piscis Austrinus Magnitude 1.2 Spectral type A3V Distance 25 light years You need naked eye from a dark sky Known as Bayer α PsA Yale HR 8728 More information about Fomalhaut Fomalhaut is sometimes called the loneliest star, because there is nothing else bright anywhere near it. Its name is the Arabic فم الحوت, "the mouth of the fish", which is where it sits in Piscis Austrinus. At 25 light years it is a close neighbour, and it is ringed by a broad belt of dust and debris. In 2008 astronomers announced they had photographed a planet inside that ring, which would have been among the first ever seen directly; further observations showed it was not a planet but an expanding cloud of rubble, most likely from a collision between two large bodies. 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/Fomalhaut