M-type star · red
Menkar
Menkar is a red in the constellation Cetus 249 ly from Earth. Its surface is about 3,608 K, about 0.6 times the Sun's surface temperature, and it shines at 490× the Sun's brightness. At magnitude 2.5 it is bright enough to see with the naked eye; the light you see left it 249 years ago.
Also catalogued as Alpha Cet · HR 911 · HD 18884 · HIP 14135
3,608 K
temperature
2.54
apparent magnitude
490× ☉
luminosity vs Sun
M2III
spectral type
Distance & comparison with our Sun
249 years
at light speed from Earth
0.63×
as hot as the Sun
490×
the Sun's light output
-1.88
absolute magnitude
Explore from here · roam the neighborhood
Nearest stars
Can you see it tonight?
VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE
Star data from the HYG database v4.2 (Astronexus, CC BY-SA 4.0). Temperature and colour computed by gravityfinder from the B-V colour index; the illustration is generated from that temperature, not a photograph.