While fairly bright, the third magnitude (2.95) Alpha star just barely loses the title of Ara's brightest to Beta Arae, which is 0.10 magnitude (about 10 percent) brighter.
It lies in the northeastern corner (17:44:8.7-51:50:2.6, ICRS 2000.0) of Constellation Ara, the Altar -- southeast of Alpha Arae, south of Lambda Arae, southwest of Theta Arae, and northeast of Beta Arae.
17 6461 beta ARA 17 25 17.9 -55 31 47 K3Ib-IIa 2.85 1.46 6462 gamma ARA 17 25 23.5 -56 22 39 B1Ib 3.34 -0.13 6500 delta ARA 17 31 05.9 -60 41 01 B8Vn 3.62 -0.10 6295 epsilon ARA 16 59 35.0 -53 09 38 K4IIIab 4.06 1.45 6314 epsilon ARA 17 03 08.
5º NE of beta Arae. It is only visible to those living in latitudes south of 30º North (which means Florida in the US and none of Europe). This cluster is threeº NE of beta Arae, or forty arc minutes east of epsilon Arae.
The brightest star in the Ara constellation is [566] beta Arae, an orange K-type giant, possibly a supergiant, 603 light-years distant from Earth. Its luminosity is about 4600 times that of our Sun.
Brightest Stars: Alpha Arae, Beta Arae, Gamma Arae
Finding Ara: Ara is located south of Scorpio, between the constellations Telescopium and Norma.
 See also: Ara, Alpha Ara, Beta Arae, Constellation, Star
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