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.
Nu Eridani
Nu Eridani (ν Eri) is a star in the constellation Eridanus. It is visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 3.93. The distance to this star is roughly 520 light years, based upon an annual parallax shift of 0.00625 arcseconds. If the star were from the Sun, it would be the brightest star in the night sky with an apparent magnitude of −2.84. (Currently, the brightest star is Sirius at magnitude −1.46.)