SkyRef / Stars

Nunki

σ Sgr. Magnitude 2.02, blue-white. Comfortably visible to the naked eye from a suburban sky.

The numbers

Designationσ Sgr
Magnitude2.02
Colourblue-white
Right ascension18.921h
Declination-26.30°
B−V index-0.22
CatalogueHR 7121

What you are looking at

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

Nunki shines at magnitude 2.02, making it comfortably visible to the naked eye from a suburban sky. Its B−V colour index of -0.22 makes it blue-white to the eye, corresponding to a surface temperature of over 10,000 K.

It sits at right ascension 18.92 hours and declination -26.3°. It lies south of the celestial equator and sits low for northern observers, better the further south you go.

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