Canis Major
Canis Major contains Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, known as the "dog star". It is bright because of its proximity to the Solar System. In contrast, the other bright stars of the constellation are stars of great distance and high luminosity. At magnitude 1.5, Epsilon Canis Majoris (Adhara) is the second-brightest star of the constellation and the brightest source of extreme ultraviolet radiation in the night sky. Next in brightness are the yellow-white supergiant Delta (Wezen) at 1.8, the blue-white giant Beta (Mirzam) at 2.0, blue-white supergiants Eta (Aludra) at 2.4 and Omicron at 3.0, and white spectroscopic binary Zeta (Furud), also at 3.0. The red hypergiant VY Canis Majoris is one of the largest stars known, while the neutron star RX J0720.4-3125 has a radius of a mere 5 km.
Bayer designation
Although the brightest star in Draco is Eltanin (Gamma Draconis), Thuban was assigned "alpha" (α) by Bayer because, due to precession, Thuban was the north pole star 4,000 years ago. Sometimes there is no apparent order, as exemplified by the stars in Sagittarius, where Bayer's designations appear almost random to the modern eye. Alpha and Beta Sagittarii are perhaps the most anomalously designated stars in the sky. They are more than two magnitudes fainter than the brightest star (designated Epsilon), they lie several degrees south of the main pattern (the "teapot" asterism), they are more than 20 degrees off the ecliptic in a Zodiacal constellation, and they do not even rise from Bayer's native Germany (while Epsilon and several other brighter stars do). The order of the letters assigned in Sagittarius does correspond to the magnitudes as illustrated on Bayer's chart; but the latter do not agree with modern determinations of the magnitudes.