Star profile
Gamma Microscopium
What is Gamma Microscopium
Gamma Microscopii lights the minuscule constellation of the Microscope, charted by Lacaille in the eighteenth century during his famous Cape of Good Hope campaign. A yellow type G giant some 229 light-years away, it shares the Sun's colour but hardly its size, having long left the main sequence. Some studies have proposed it as a former member of the Ursa Major moving group, a stream of sibling stars that time has scattered across the sky.
Where it is and when to see it
Gamma Microscopium lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is August: the Sun sits at the opposite point of the sky and the star culminates around midnight. How high it climbs above the horizon depends on the latitude you watch from.
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The signature wall
Stelvia's sky works like a signature wall: anyone can leave their name and a message on a real star, and that signature goes up on the map for everyone to read. Signing is free.
A signature without a lock can be replaced by someone else's. The lock makes the signature permanent and lets you choose a symbolic name for the star, always shown next to the star's catalogue identifier. How the lock works
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A public signature from a real person. The chosen name is a symbolic denomination within Stelvia, with no official standing or IAU recognition: the sky is not for sale and belongs to no one.
Astronomical data for Gamma Microscopium
- Constellation
- Microscopium
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.67
- Distance
- 229.1 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 315.323° · Dec -32.258°
- Catalogue
- HIP 103738 · HD 199951
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Microscopium
Microscopium has 23 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Epsilon Microscopium4.71
- Theta 1 Microscopium4.80
- Alpha Microscopium4.89
- Iota Microscopium5.11
- Nu Microscopium5.12
- HIP 1041745.20
- HIP 1047385.25
- Zeta Microscopium5.32