Alpha Pictoris (α Pic, α Pictoris) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Pictor. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.27, which is bright enough to be viewed from urban areas in the southern hemisphere. This star is close enough for its distance to be measured using parallax shifts, which yields a value of roughly 97 light-years (30 parsecs) from the Sun, with a 5% margin of error. Alpha Pictoris has the distinction of being the south pole star of the planet Mercury.