Carina
What is Carina?
Constellations· Southern summer–autumn · second-brightest star; only Canopus grazes Korea's horizon. The keel of the ship Argo, one of three pieces of the old giant constellation. It holds Canopus, second-brightest star in the sky, and the Carina Nebula, the finest nebula of the southern sky, plus the "False Cross".
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Carina is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=con:Carina — location and time set automatically, no login.
Stars of the figure
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Canopus | -0.7 |
| Miaplacidus | 1.7 |
| Avior | 1.9 |
| Theta Carinae | 2.7 |
| Upsilon Carinae | 2.9 |
The 5 brightest of the 10 stars used in the figure (9 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.
Deep-sky objects near this constellation
Constellation basics
| Season | January–April from the south; from Korea only Canopus skims the horizon in February |
|---|---|
| Brightest star | Canopus (−0.7, second-brightest star) |
| How to find | from bright Canopus below Sirius toward the Southern Cross |
| Area rank | 34th of 88 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- When can I see Carina?
- January–April from the south; from Korea only Canopus skims the horizon in February.
- How do I find Carina?
- from bright Canopus below Sirius toward the Southern Cross.
- What is the brightest star in Carina?
- Canopus, magnitude -0.7.
- Where is Carina in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
In 1843, the star that became the second brightest in the sky
Eta Carinae, inside the Carina Nebula, suddenly brightened to magnitude −1 in March 1843 and became the second brightest star after Sirius. In this event, known as the Great Eruption, the star threw off more than ten solar masses of material and survived without exploding. It later faded to 8th magnitude and is now slowly recovering to around 4th.
The gas ejected then now surrounds the star as the two-lobed Homunculus Nebula, seen in Hubble images expanding at 600 km/s. Eta Carinae is a binary of two stars of roughly a hundred solar masses orbiting every 5.5 years, among the most massive stars in the Milky Way. This southern star is counted as a candidate to go supernova at any time, though when cannot be predicted.
The constellation in depth
Carina is the keel of the Argo, the ship in which Jason and the Argonauts sailed for the Golden Fleece. The original Argo Navis was so large that Lacaille divided it in the 1750s into Carina, Puppis and Vela, which is why its Greek-letter stars are scattered among the three. Canopus is named for the helmsman of Menelaus in the Trojan War.
Canopus is a white supergiant 310 light-years away shining with ten thousand Suns. Far from the ecliptic and steady in brightness, it serves as a guide star for spacecraft navigation. The Carina Nebula, NGC 3372, is several times larger than the Orion Nebula, and inside it Eta Carinae, a supergiant on the brink of exploding, briefly became the second-brightest star in the sky in the 1840s.
On southern summer evenings the very bright star below Sirius is Canopus; from it a line of stars runs southeast to the Carina Nebula near the Southern Cross. From Seoul Canopus never quite clears the horizon, but from Jeju (33.5° N) it rises about four degrees above the southern horizon on February nights — Koreans called it the Old Man Star and said seeing it brought long life. Switch the Sky view to Sydney to see the nebula as well.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.