Phi

Highly luminous star

Its story

Phi Cassiopeiae is no ordinary star: it is a yellow hypergiant at roughly 326,000 light-years, among the most luminous known, blazing with the force of hundreds of thousands of suns. So far it almost grazes the edge of the galaxy, it reaches us as a modest dot in the W of Cassiopeia. The light crossing the autumn sky tonight set out long before Homo sapiens ever set foot in Europe.

Constellation: Cassiopeia
Apparent magnitude: 4.95
Distance: 326200.0 light years
Coordinates (J2000): RA 20.020° · Dec 58.232°
Catalogue: HIP 6242 · HD 7927

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