Talk:Canopus

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[edit] Tidy-up

I added the detail of the star's ancient role as a 'southern pole-star', and turned the mention of Canopus in Argos into a working link. I also created subheaders and moved a couple of paragraphs to a more logical order.

--GwydionM 19:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of fiction has been moved to Stars and planetary systems in fiction --GwydionM 17:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Frank Herbert's Arrakis?

Is identification of Canopus as the Arrakis in Frank Herbert's Dune correct, from the text of the novel itself? Arrakis is one form of the Arabic name for Mu Draconis, HR 6370. BSVulturis 22:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colour

Canopus is not "yellowish white". It's a white star. Look at the photo included--white with a tinge of blue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.20 (talk) 21:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Erm not necessarily a true colour photo but...thought I'd try and clear this up...an IP changed the Canopus page to describe it as a white rather than yellow-white star. I changed back as that was what I always read in books as a kis but thought this was what was meant so worte it thus to clarify. Is this an accurate appraisal, and if so can we get a ref for it? I am still a neophyte at star stuff. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Canopus is a F-class supergiant star and essentially white when seen with the naked eye, though these stars are considered to be yellowish-white when viewed in greater detail.

The terms yellow and yellow-white are constructs and are used in reference to Vega, a sort of stellar 'white standard'. Yet Vega, A0V, is blue-white to the eye. The photo of Canopus here looks true-colour to me, unless that camera was heavily biased to the red. Even 'red giant' stars like Aldebaran really look yellow-orange. 68Kustom (talk) 10:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Units of angle

this is based on a parallax measurement of 10.43 ± 0.53 mas.

Would it be unreasonable of me to edit this by inserting "about 5 nanoradians" in parentheses at the end of the sentence, like so?

this is based on a parallax measurement of 10.43 ± 0.53 mas (about 5 nrad).

--arkuat (talk) 04:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)