SkyRef / Stars

Algol

β Per. Magnitude 2.12, white. Comfortably visible to the naked eye from a suburban sky.

The numbers

Designationβ Per
Magnitude2.12
Colourwhite
Right ascension3.136h
Declination+40.96°
B−V index-0.05
CatalogueHR 936

What you are looking at

Astronomers call it β Per — the Bayer designation, which reads as a Greek letter ranking its brightness within its constellation. Algol is the name people actually use.

Algol shines at magnitude 2.12, making it comfortably visible to the naked eye from a suburban sky. Its B−V colour index of -0.05 makes it white to the eye, corresponding to a surface temperature of around 8,000 K.

It sits at right ascension 3.14 hours and declination +41.0°. It sits well north on the sky and is comfortably placed for northern hemisphere observers.

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