False-color image of the Pistol star and Pistol nebula

The Pistol Star is a blue hypergiant. It is one of the most luminous stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

It is one of many massive young stars in the Quintuplet cluster in the central region of our galaxy. It is about 25,000 light years from Earth in the direction of Sagittarius. It would be visible to the naked eye as a fourth magnitude star but interstellar gases have blocked it from view.