Mirfak

The star Mirfak (rhymes with Beer-back) has received a lot of attention lately because it is the closest bright star to the comet Holmes in its recent brightening. It is the brightest star in Perseus. The name of the star comes from an Arabic phrase meaning "the elbow of the Pleiades". It is also well known for its proximity to Algol, the famous eclipsing, variable double star. Mirfak's magnitude is 1.82 and it is 590 light years away. It's an F class star that has a luminosity equal to 5000 times that of the sun and its radius is 62 times greater. Its mass is 7 to 8 times solar — the uncertainty a result of not knowing if it has starting fusing helium yet or not. It is part of a cluster. Looking at Mirfak through binoculars you can see many stars around it. It appears that Mirfak is really part of that cluster, the cluster as a whole determined to be 575 light years away.

To find Mirfak, start at Casseiopeia and find the line between Gamma Cas (the middle star) and Ruchbah (the fourth star in Casseiopeia along the less acute angle in that constellation's "W"). Continue along that line through the Perseus double cluster (NGC 869/884). Besides Comet Holmes, Mirfak was also close to Comet Machholz in 2005.