The question was
what is the brightest star in the sky?
Bonus points what is its magnitude?
The brightest star in the sky is Sirius with a magnitude of –1.4. Which leads to the interesting question of
how can something that is the brightest have a negative magnitude? It has to do with the way the brightness
scale was constructed historically.
Ptolemy declared the brightest stars were of the first magnitude and
continued on to the faintest starts at the sixth magnitude. When the scale was codified stars that were
brighter then the first magnitude were accommodated by being given 0 & then
negative numbers.
The question (&
answer) were taken from p. 48 of A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Jay M. Pasachoff. The book was published by Peterson Field
Guides in 2000.
