Beta Centauri
Related Category: Astronomy: Stars
(b´t sntőr´): see Hadar.
More on Beta Centauri
Hadar - or Beta Centauri bright star in the constellation Centaurus; 1992 position R.A. 14h01.7m, dec. −60°13&minut;.
Beta Centauri (β Cen / β Centauri), also known as Hadar or Agena, is the second brightest star in the constellation Centaurus and the eleventh brightest star in the nighttime sky.
Beta Centauri (proper name Hadar) is a blue-white super giant and in about 4,000 years, the proper motion of Alpha Centauri will carry it close enough to Beta Centauri that they will appear to be a magnificent double star.
Beta Centauri known as Hader is also a bright star in the southern sky. It is a first magnitude star.
Together, to viewers in the south, alpha and beta centauri are known as the pointers.
These two stars point to the southern cross constellation Crux.
Beta Centauri (Hadar) is the tenth brightest star in the heavens, at 0.61 visual magnitude (which is actually the combined values of its two components). It's 525 light years distant and is a rather difficult visual binary (see below).
Centaurus is dominated by its two brightest stars, Rigil Kentaurus (Alpha Centauri, third brightest star in the sky and the nearest star to the Earth) and first magnitude Hadar (Beta Centauri).
In 1501 the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) charted what seems to have been Alpha and Beta Centauri and the stars of Crux, but the most accurate early depiction was made by the Italian navigator Andrea Corsali in 1515.
Centaurus contains Alpha and Beta Centauri, the third and tenth brightest stars in the sky. (Note: Some lists name Betelgeuse in Orion as the tenth brightest star, but Betelgeuse is a variable star making its ranking difficult).
In the southern hemisphere, Alpha Centauri is one of the stars of The Pointers or The Southern Pointers [18] with Beta Centauri or Hadar / Agena. [19] Both stars directly point towards the constellation Crux-the Southern Cross.
Another magnitude 1 star, [2041] beta Centauri, also known as Agena ("knee") and Hadar ("ground"), can be found in the constellation. It is a blue-white giant approximately 525 light-years distant from Earth.
The bluish star to the upper right of Alpha Centauri is Beta Centauri, the second-brightest star of the southern constellation Centaurus. The Southern Cross forms a kite shape at the right of the image. [Claus Madsen/European Southern Observatory] ...
Open star clusters NGC 5460, NGC 3766, NGC 5316, NGC 5617
Spiral Galaxy M83
Elliptical galaxy NGC 4945
Peculiar Galaxy NGC 5128 containing the radio source Centaurus A
Meteor Shower: Alpha und Beta Centaurids ...
Both Lupus and Norma are in the rich starfields of the southern Milky Way, easily seen between Antares and alpha and beta Centaurii. The brightest object in this image is Jupiter, on the ecliptic at the top of the frame.
 See also: Sky, Star, Taurus, Constellation, Light
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