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Stars that have magnitudes between 1.5 and 2.5 are called second-magnitude; there are some 20 stars brighter than 1.5, which are first-magnitude stars (see the list of brightest stars). For example, Sirius is magnitude −1.46, Arcturus is −0.04, Aldebaran is 0.85, Spica is 1.04, and Procyon is 0.34.
For example, Betelgeuse has the K-band apparent magnitude of −4.05. [5] Some stars, like Betelgeuse and Antares, are variable stars, changing their magnitude over days, months or years. In the table, the range of variation is indicated with the symbol "var". Single magnitude values quoted for variable stars come from a variety of sources.
In 1856, Norman Robert Pogson formalized the system by defining a first magnitude star as a star that is 100 times as bright as a sixth-magnitude star, thereby establishing the logarithmic scale still in use today. This implies that a star of magnitude m is about 2.512 times as bright as a star of magnitude m + 1.
Brightest planet −2.20 [6]: 39 −2.94 [6]: 39 Jupiter: Planet −1.46 Sirius: Binary star system: Brightest night star −0.74 Canopus: Star −0.29 [7] Alpha Centauri AB Binary star system Part of a triple star system with Proxima Centauri: −0.05 Arcturus: Star Brightest Population II star 0.03 −0.02 Vega: Star 0.08 0.03 [8] Capella ...
The two brightest stars, α Aquarii and β Aquarii, are luminous yellow supergiants, of spectral types G0Ib and G2Ib respectively, [11] that were once hot blue-white B-class main sequence stars 5 to 9 times as massive as the Sun. The two are also moving through space perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way.
The Sun is by far the brightest object in the Earth's sky, with an apparent magnitude of −26.74. [ 33 ] [ 34 ] This is about 13 billion times brighter than the next brightest star, Sirius , which has an apparent magnitude of −1.46.
Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day. The black hole ...
If this object were 10 parsecs away from Earth it would appear nearly as bright in the sky as the Sun (apparent magnitude −26.744). This quasar's luminosity is, therefore, about 2 trillion (10 12 ) times that of the Sun, or about 100 times that of the total light of average large galaxies like our Milky Way .