Alpha Scuti - Ionnina

At magnitude 3.85, Alpha Scuti is the brightest star in the modern constellation Scutum, the Shield, which honors the Polish king John Sobieski for his defense of Vienna in 1683. The star is occasionally called by the traditional Greek name Ionnina or Ioannina, which literally means "Of John", but the name may actually refer to the "Shield Within a Shield" design of Sobieski's Coat of Arms, christened the "Janina" design.

Properties

Alpha Scuti is an orange class K2 III giant with a temperature of 4300 K. From a distance of 175 light years, it radiates 132 solar luminosities from a surface swollen to 21 times the radius of the Sun. Alpha Scuti is slightly variable, by about 10%, but its variability type is unclassified, and its period is unknown. Alpha Scuti is a 1.7 solar mass star, at least 2 billion years old; the star's variability suggests that it is a late-stage giant with a dead carbon core.

[Adapted from STARS by Jim Kaler, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy, University of Illinois]