3 Monocerotis

3 Monocerotis is a blue giant star in the southwest of Monoceros, near the point where that constellation meets Lepus to the south and Orion to the west. An imaginary line eastward through the 'feet' of Orion - the stars Rigel and Saiph - points almost directly toward this faint fifth-magnitude star.

3 Monocerotis lies some considerable distance from the Sun. The Hipparcos data suggests a distance approaching 800 light years, while parallax data from the Gaia survey places it somewhat farrher than this, at about 935 light years. This is a hot blue star in the later stages of its lifecycle, having expanded to become a giant, which is generating approximately a thousand times as much energy as the Sun. It has one known binary companion, an eighth-magnitude star designated 3 Monocerotis B.