Canopus

Canopus
Canopus (Alpha Carinae) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina, and the second brightest star in the sky, with a visual magnitude of -0.62 it is second only to Sirius.
It is a yellowish-white supergiant star of a rare spectral type F, since most supergiants are either blue or red.
Canopus islocated 310 ly which makes it about 20,000 times brighter than the Sun and the most intrinsically bright star within about 700 ly. It is in reality much more luminous than Sirius, which is only a mere 22 times more luminous than our sun, and depends on being much closer to us to beat Canopus in apparent magnitude.

Technical details

OPTICS10" Newtonian f/5.2
MOUNTLosmandy G11 equatorial
CAMERAPhilips ToUCam Pro SC1 webcam
FILTERSNone
EXPOSURE38 x 6s
DATE/TIME11/11/2005 10:36 UTC
LOCATIONMy backyard observatory in west Auckland, New Zealand

Back to Deep Sky | Back to previous page