Libra
Origin
Libra, whose Latin name means the scales, is a faint constellation of the zodiac, located in the northern hemisphere. The constellation does not contain any stars brighter than second magnitude.
Bright Stars
Alpha Librae is the brightest star and is a multiple star system divisible into two stars when seen through binoculars. The primary component is a blue-white star of magnitude 2.7 and the secondary component is a white star of magnitude 5.2. The brightest star in Libra is magnitude 2.6. Gamma Librae is an orange star of magnitude 3.9.
Photo of the constellation Libra produced by NOIRLab in collaboration with Eckhard Slawik, a German astrophotographer.
The annotations are from a standardized set of 88 western IAU constellations and stick figures from Sky & Telescope. Please find here a non-annotated version of the image.
Credit: E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani
Latin name
Libra
Genitive forms
Librae
English name
The Scales
Pronunciation
Lee-BRAH
Abbreviation
Lib
