Mintaka
Where is Mintaka?
Look south, about 38° up at 05:17 in Orion. It rises at 23:33 and climbs through the night.
- Rises
- 23:33
- Highest
- 05:34
- Sets
- 11:35
- Best after dark
- 05:17 · 38°
Can I see Mintaka tonight?
From London tonight, Mintaka is above the horizon after dark. It’s highest just before dawn, around 05:17, in the south at 38°.
At magnitude 2.3 it is visible by eye, even from many towns, when the sky is clear.
This is position and timing only: clouds, haze and light pollution aren’t included.
What does Mintaka look like?
Mintaka looks blue-white to the eye (color is easier to see in binoculars). Its spectral type is O9.5IINwk: very hot blue bright giant (far hotter than the Sun).
Eyes
The faintest of the three Belt stars, at the upper right for northern observers.
Binoculars
A bright point among the Belt’s many fainter stars.
Telescope
A small telescope shows a wide, easy companion to the north.
About Mintaka
Mintaka is the westernmost star of Orion’s Belt. It lies almost exactly on the celestial equator, so it rises almost exactly due east and sets almost exactly due west from anywhere on Earth.
It is a multiple system of hot blue stars, and its brightest member is an eclipsing pair that dims very slightly at regular intervals.
Its brightest member is a pair of massive stars that eclipse each other every 5.7 days, causing tiny dips in brightness.
Mintaka is about 1,200 light-years away. Like the other Belt stars, it belongs to a large group of young, massive stars in Orion.
Its name comes from the Arabic for “the belt”. Orion’s Belt is a handy signpost: extended one way it points to Sirius, and the other way toward Aldebaran and the Pleiades.
Because it lies on the celestial equator, Mintaka can be seen from every inhabited place on Earth, high in the sky from the tropics and lower toward the south or north from higher latitudes.
Mintaka in Orion
Questions
Why is Mintaka useful for finding directions?
Sources: SkyMate; Wikidata (CC0). Positions computed for your place and time with astronomy-engine. Data & Licences