Download Excel File List of Brightest Stars

This is a list of the brightest individual stars in determined by their average apparent magnitudes in the visible spectrum as seen from Earth. This is not the same as a list of the brightest stars as seen with the naked eye, as close binary or multiple star systems will appear as a single star with an apparent magnitude greater than their individual components, e.g. the binary system Rigel Kentaurus has an apparent magnitude of -0.27, but the brightest individual star is Alpha Centauri A with the apparent magnitude as listed here of -0.01. Hence Alpha Centauri is the third brightest star in the night sky, whilst its brightest component Alpha Centauri A is the fourth brightest individual star. Stellar brightness in this selected table is limited to brighter than +2.50 magnitude, mostly as the available number of observable stars increases almost exponentially as the magnitude increases.