Menkent
HR 5288 · HIP 68933 · θ Cen
👁️ Naked-eye
📋 A written introduction is coming — for now this page shows official values only.
Star
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.05 mag
- Parallax
- 55.45 mas → about 58.8 light-years away
- Spectral type
- K0IIIb
- Right ascension
- 211.6706°
- Declination
- -36.37°
- Designation
- HR 5288
- Bayer designation
- θ Cen
- HIP number
- 68933
- IAU name adopted
- 2016-08-21
- Name language
- Arabic
- Name origin (IAU)
- Applied in recent times and possibly coined from the Arabic word mankib, "shoulder" (in some recent transliterations: menkib; Ptolemy described this star on the right "shoulder" of the Centaur), plus the Latinized "Kentaurus" for the Arabic constellation name qanturis. Hence this name could be of similar construction to the abbreviation for α Cen: "Rigil Kent."
Source:IAU Working Group on Star Names · checked 2026-11-02 ↗ESA Hipparcos Catalogue (ESA Gaia Archive) · checked 2026-11-03 ↗
Related
Constellation
In everyday life
- Light from this object takes about 59 years to reach Earth — the light you see tonight left around AD 1967 (official distance ÷ speed of light).
- At magnitude 2.1 it is bright enough for the naked eye (limit about 6) — look from somewhere dark.
- Declination -36.4° — it rises above the horizon in Seoul (37.6° N), so it is visible from Korea in the right season.
Worked out from this object's official values.