# Stars distance from Earth. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677 "2003-12-08T02:45:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tallayan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Tallayan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tallayan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/1 "2003-12-08T02:45:33Z")
Just a quick Q, does anyone know where I can find a site that lists the distance of stars from the earth? I tried google but couldnt find anything. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/2 "2003-12-08T03:15:59Z")
[Here](http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars) is a list of the nearest stars to us within 15 LY. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/3 "2003-12-08T03:16:03Z")
[The Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission](http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Hipparcos/hipparcos.html) has probably the best data for stars within 150 light-years of Sol. But this won’t cover very bright but more distant stars like Rigel and Betelguese, so for that you’d need a table of naked-eye star distances. ---
**Author:** ![Tallayan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Tallayan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tallayan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/4 "2003-12-08T03:20:38Z")
sorry I didnt mention it in the OP but I need to list distances for constelations, alot of which are beyond 150 LYs. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/5 "2003-12-08T03:34:31Z")
I found a fair amount of stuff using stars + distance in Google. [This site](http://www.ucolick.org/~bolte/AY4_00/week4/star_distance.html) explains determining star distance by parallax and lists the ten stars within 3 parsecs (~10 light years) of earth. A projection and links to projections and lists out to 20 light years are found [here. The [http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/brightest.html](http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/brightest.html)]distance to the brightest stars]([http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/12lys.html](http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/12lys.html)) as seen from Earth. A [similar list](http://www.krysstal.com/brightest.html) with additional data. AFAIK nobody has bothered listing all known stars with distance and placing it on the Web. I suspect there’s a compendium of this somewhere, and perhaps some of our astronomy/astrophysics folks will have that information. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/6 "2003-12-08T03:45:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tallayan \* > \*\*sorry I didnt mention it in the OP but I need to list distances for constelations, alot of which are beyond 150 LYs. \*\* It makes no sense to speak of the distance of a constellation. Constellations are regions of the sky extending out to infinity. The visible stars within each constellation lie at hugely disparate distances. ---
**Author:** ![aerodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f08c70/32.png) [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/7 "2003-12-08T03:55:42Z")
Distance to constellations, eh? Don’t each of the stars in a given constellation generally vary greatly in distance? ---
**Author:** ![aerodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f08c70/32.png) [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/8 "2003-12-08T03:56:50Z")
Preview is your friend… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/9 "2003-12-08T04:16:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by audilover \* > \*\*Distance to constellations, eh? > > Don’t each of the stars in a given constellation generally vary greatly in distance? \*\* Usually although in some cases, such as the Pleiades, they are open clusters. ---
**Author:** ![Erroneous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71c47a/32.png) [@Erroneous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erroneous)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/10 "2003-12-08T04:22:29Z")
[Celestia](http://www.shatters.net/celestia/) is a 3D simulation of the nearby Universe, with everything in its (more or less) proper place. You can turn on the connecting lines between stars in the constellations, and then move around them and see how they distort. It’s pretty fun. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/11 "2003-12-08T04:22:53Z")
Possibly you meant galaxies, not constellations. Googling “galaxy distance” produces some interesting info on how these are measured; “xxx galaxy distance” should yield the distance of galaxy xxx. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/12 "2003-12-08T06:16:02Z")
While this may not answer your questions, I really like this site: [The Universe](http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/12lys.html) You can zoom out from a 12.5 Light Year radius all the way to the size of the entire visible universe. Pretty cool! ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/13 "2003-12-08T07:15:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by David Simmons \* > Usually although in some cases, such as the Pleiades, they are open clusters. But the Pleiades isn’t a constellation. It’s a cluster. But certainly, the distances to clusters is a major topic in astronomy, and the distance to any given cluster should be easy to find. ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/14 "2003-12-08T17:46:18Z")
Here’s a logarithmic map of the universe: [http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/](http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/15 "2003-12-08T20:11:08Z")
Perhaps read “asterism” for “constellation”? They’re easily confused, but the former are groups of stars in the sky that do actually have a mutual gravitational relationship – open clusers and more loosely connected groups. The Hyades (which with Aldebaran and the Pleiades constitute the constellation Taurus) are a good example – though I understand that there are a couple of outlying members of the Hyades as a cluster nowhere near Taurus. The “distance to a constellation” is really like asking “how far is southeast?” ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/16 "2003-12-08T20:33:15Z")
…or maybe he really meant constellations. As in, “I need to know each of the seven stars’ in the Big Dipper’s distance from earth, even though I understand they are unrelated to each other.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/17 "2003-12-08T22:07:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Usually although in some cases, such as the Pleiades, they are open clusters. Although the Pleiades aren’t a constellation, Coma Berenices is a constellation which is an open cluster. And Orion isn’t exactly a cluster, but most of the stars in Orion (except for Betelgeuse) are at approximately the same distance. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-distance-from-earth/217677/18 "2003-12-08T22:46:17Z")
Another free simulation is Partiview: [http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/hp/vo/du/partiview.html](http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/hp/vo/du/partiview.html) I downloaded a copy some time ago. The positions of stars are in a 13MB mostly text file called stars.speck. At the beginning of the file is the string “Milky Way Atlas: Observed Stars # B. Abbott, R. Drimmel (AMNH/Hayden)” and the field names of each record, including one called “dist”. I couldn’t figure out what units they’re using for any of the fields, though, and “dist” might not be distance from Earth.