Izar

Intrinsically brighter than its place in the sky suggests, Izar has an absolute magnitude of −1.62 while appearing at only apparent magnitude 2.35, a difference owed to its distance of some 203 light-years. It holds the Epsilon designation of Boötes, the Herdsman. Recorded as an A-type star, Izar has a comparatively warm colour index of 0.966, cooler in tint than the pure white A stars. It lies within the kite-shaped figure of Boötes, not far from the constellation's brilliant leading star Arcturus, whose greater brightness makes Izar a secondary but still conspicuous feature of the northern spring sky. Even so, its negative absolute magnitude marks it as a genuinely luminous star, one whose true output is masked only by the two hundred light-years separating it from the Solar System.