# Alnasl (Gamma² Sagittarii)

Alnasl (Gamma² Sagittarii) is a star in the constellation Sagittarius, magnitude 3.0.

**The arrowhead of the Archer — and the tip of the Teapot’s spout.**

Alnasl means ‘the arrowhead’, from the Arabic al-naṣl; another old name, Nushaba, means the same. To modern stargazers it is the tip of the spout of the Teapot, the [asterism](https://astropilot.space/glossary/asterism) traced by the brightest stars of Sagittarius.

Older skywatchers saw birds. A 17th-century star calendar from Cairo calls it the first of the ostriches going down to the water: with Delta, Epsilon and Eta Sagittarii it formed a flock stooping to drink from the river of the Milky Way, while a second flock climbed back up. The Akkadians saw a swallow in some of the same stars.

The star is an orange giant, twice the Sun’s mass and twelve times its width. Having exhausted the hydrogen in its core, it now fuses helium there, on the stage astronomers call the horizontal branch. Its surface is about 4,900 kelvins, some 900 degrees cooler than the Sun’s.

Alnasl (Gamma² Sagittarii) is 97 light-years away: the light we see from it set off in 1929, around the time Pluto was discovered.

## Did you know?

- **A Cepheid next door.** Just under a degree to the north is Gamma¹ Sagittarii, a pulsating Cepheid variable also known as W Sagittarii. It only looks close: the two stars are not related.
- **The Winnowing Basket.** In Chinese astronomy Alnasl, Delta, Epsilon and Eta Sagittarii form Jī, the Winnowing Basket, one of the lunar mansions. Alnasl is its first star.

The orange 3rd-magnitude star at the tip of the Teapot’s spout in Sagittarius. Compare its warm tint with blue-white Kaus Australis, the Teapot’s brightest star, about five degrees to the south-east.

## When and where to see it

It is best placed in the evening sky around July, when it crosses the meridian at about 10 pm local time (around midnight in June). It can be seen from everywhere south of 60°N and never sets south of 60°S.

At its highest it stands 10° up from 50°N, 25° up from 35°N, 60° up from the equator, 85° up from 35°S.

## Facts

- Type: Star
- Constellation: Sagittarius
- Designations: Gamma² Sagittarii, γ² Sgr, 10 Sgr, HR 6746, HD 165135, HIP 88635
- Magnitude: 3.0
- Position: RA 18h 5.8m, Dec −30° 25′ (J2000)
- Spectral type: K0+III
- Colour: orange (B−V 1.01)
- Distance: 97 light-years
- Discovered: Known since antiquity

Open AstroPilot to see when Alnasl (Gamma² Sagittarii) is highest tonight from your location, how easy it is with your telescope or binoculars, and an eyepiece view. https://astropilot.space/object/alnasl