Peacock is the brightest star of Pavo in the far southern sky, a hot blue-white star whose plain English name was coined for navigators.
At a glance
| type | blue-white star (class B) |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 179 light-years (54.8 pc) |
| its light left it | 179 years ago |
| luminosity | 3,070 × the Sun |
| radius | 3.82 × the Sun |
| surface temperature | 22,000 K |
| constellation | Pavo (Peacock) |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Peacock
It is a blue-white star of class B, far hotter than the Sun and vastly more luminous. Its spectrum shows it is a close binary, two stars too near each other to be seen apart, revealed by the regular shifting of their light.
Most bright stars carry names from Greek, Latin or Arabic. Peacock does not: the name was given to Alpha Pavonis by the British Nautical Almanac Office for an air almanac, so that navigators had a name to call it by. It remains one of the stars used for celestial navigation.
What you see in the piece
Its blue-white colour is its temperature, drawn as is. From most of the northern hemisphere it never rises; use the human eye view from the south to see it in its constellation.
Questions
Why is the star called Peacock?
The name was given for navigation, after the constellation Pavo, which is Latin for peacock. It has no older Arabic or Greek name in common use.