Star Altair

The star Altair is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila and belongs to the brightest stars in the night sky. Furthermore, it forms the summer triangle with Vega and Deneb.

Facts about Altair

Like the sun, Altair is currently in the local cloud. In addition, it has an apparent brightness of 0.7mag and with a distance of 16 light years it is a neighbor of the sun. Due to its proximity to the sun, Altair has a rather large proper motion. Consequently, in 2,500 years it will shift by one full moon's latitude in the sky. Due to its fast rotation, Altair is very strongly flattened at the poles. With a surface temperature of 7,800 Kelvin, Altair is obviously much hotter than the Sun. Its mass is 1.7 times that of the Sun. The lifetime of the star Altair is a little more than 1 billion years. In addition, it is estimated to be only a few 100 million years old.

Visibility of Altair

From May to September we can observe Altair in our latitudes, where it is completely visible from 78 degrees north to 71 degrees south.