Star profile
Aldhanab
Gamma Grus · Grus
Hot blue starWhat is Aldhanab
Aldhanab shines with cool blue light from 211 light-years away in Grus, the crane, one of the figures introduced into the southern sky during the Renaissance. A class-B star, young and hot, its colour betrays surface temperatures far above the Sun's. Its Arabic name, «al-dhanab», the tail, did not originally belong to the crane but to earlier silhouettes, proof of how celestial drawings shift across centuries and peoples.
Where it is and when to see it
Aldhanab 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 Aldhanab
- Constellation
- Grus
- Apparent magnitude
- 3.00
- Distance
- 211.1 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 328.482° · Dec -37.365°
- Catalogue
- HIP 108085 · HD 207971
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Grus
Grus has 39 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- AlnairAlpha Grus1.73
- TiakiBeta Grus2.07
- Epsilon Grus3.49
- Iota Grus3.88
- Delta 1 Grus3.97
- Zeta Grus4.11
- Delta 2 Grus4.12
- Theta Grus4.28