Suhaila is another name for the star Canopus in the Carina constellation (Wikipedia):
Canopus (α Car / α Carinae /
Alpha Carinae) is the brightest star in the southern
constellation of
Carina, and the
second brightest star in the night-time sky, with a
visual magnitude of −0.72, second only to
Sirius.
In Ancient Hindu astronomy and astrology star Canopus is named as Agasti
Kalīla o Damna, an influential Pahlavi (Middle
Persian) book of animal
fables was later known as
Anvar-i-Suhaili or
The Lights of Canopus.
At the end of the British film
Ice Cold in Alex (1958), the principal characters enjoy a cold beer in the Bar Canopus (in
Alexandria).
In
Frank Herbert's
Dune universe, the planet
Arrakis is the third planet orbiting Canopus.
In the
Star Trek universe, Canopus was one of the stars used as a reference point by
Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu after the Enterprise had been thrown 500 parsecs by the Metrons.
The name "Canopus" has two common derivations, both listed in
Richard Hinckley Allen's touchstone of stellar mythology,
Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning; which may be a matter of conjecture. One comes from the legend of the
Trojan War. As the constellation Carina is part of the now-obsolete, gigantic
Argo Navis constellation, which represented the ship used by
Jason and the Argonauts, the brightest star in the constellation was given the name of a ship's pilot from another Greek legend -
Canopus was the pilot of
Menelaus' ship on his quest to retrieve
Helen of Troy after she was taken by
Paris.
[citation needed] The other etymology of the name is that it comes from the Egyptian
Coptic Kahi Nub ("Golden Earth"), which refers to the way it would appear near the horizon in
Egypt and be correspondingly reddened by atmospheric extinction from that position.
[citation needed] There is also a ruined ancient Egyptian port,
Canopus, apparently specifically named for the star, near the mouth of the
Nile; its site was the location of the
Battle of the Nile.
Or it could be that Menelaus's legendary pilot was named after the port, and the port was named "Golden Floor" because of the many valuable cargoes that passed across its quays and the profits made by merchants there.
It is known as 老人星(Lǎorénxīng, the Star of the Old) in Chinese.
Canopus is a yellowish-white
supergiant star. It is located well into the southern hemisphere, at a
declination of −52° 42' (2000) and a
right ascension of 06h24.0m, and is visible on the southern horizon of US States as far north as
Virginia or
Kentucky or the African coast of the
Mediterranean Sea. From the southern hemisphere below the tropics such as in Australia, South America and South Africa, Canopus and
Sirius are both visible high in the sky at once when they reach their highest points in the sky 21 minutes apart.
Canopus is, according to the
Hipparcos satellite, 310
light years (96
parsecs) from our
solar system (based on
parallax measurement of 10.43 ± 0.53
mas).
[1] Before Hipparcos, distance estimates for the star varied very widely, up to as much as 1200 light years or as close as 96 light years; had the former been correct, Canopus would have been one of the most powerful stars in our galaxy. As is, it is still about 20,000 times brighter than the
Sun and the most intrinsically bright star within 700 light years or so.
[citation needed] It is much more intrinsically luminous than the sole night sky star that appears brighter than it from Earth-
Sirius is a mere 22 times more luminous than our sun, and depends on being much closer to us to beat its rival in
apparent magnitude. In fact, for a large fraction of stars in the local stellar neighbourhood, Canopus is the "brightest star in the sky".
[citation needed] The difficulty in measuring Canopus' distance stemmed from its unusual nature. The usual classification for Canopus is F0 Ia, and F-class bright
supergiants are rare and poorly understood; they may be stars in the process of evolving to or away from
red giant status. This in turn made it difficult to guess how intrinsically bright it is and so how far away it might be. Direct measurement was the only way to solve the problem, and as it was too far away for earth-based parallax observations to be made, a precise distance had to wait until the Space
To anyone living in the northern hemisphere, but far enough south to see the star, it served as a southern
pole star. (Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning). This lasted only until
magnetic compasses became common, of course.
In modern times, another navigational use has been found. Due to its brightness and position away from the orbital plane of our solar system (the latter being in contrast to Sirius' position), Canopus is often used by American space probes for navigational purposes, using a special camera known as a "Canopus
Star Tracker" in combination with a "Sun Tracker".