List of brightest stars

This is a list of stars arranged by their apparent magnitude – their brightness as observed from Earth.

It includes all stars brighter than magnitude +2.50 in visible light, measured using a V-band filter in the UBV photometric system.

As with all magnitude systems in astronomy, the scale is logarithmic and inverted i.e. lower/more negative numbers are brighter.

Most stars on this list appear bright from Earth because they are nearby, not because they are intrinsically luminous.

For comparison, the brightest non-stellar objects in the Solar System have maximum brightnesses of: Any exact order of the visual brightness of stars is not perfectly defined for four reasons: All of these stars have multiple valid names or catalogue designations.

Some major asterisms , which feature many of the brightest stars in the night sky