Star profile
Alpha Lacerta
What is Alpha Lacerta
Alpha Lacertae is the brightest light of Lacerta, the modest Lizard that Polish astronomer Hevelius drew between Cygnus and Andromeda in 1687 to fill a gap in the northern sky. She is a white main-sequence star, twice the Sun's mass and a little more than twice its radius, settled just 103 light-years away. Alone, she holds together a constellation that would otherwise be almost invisible.
Where it is and when to see it
Alpha Lacerta lies in the northern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is October: 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 Alpha Lacerta
- Constellation
- Lacerta
- Apparent magnitude
- 3.76
- Distance
- 102.6 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 337.823° · Dec 50.282°
- Catalogue
- HIP 111169 · HD 213558
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Lacerta
Lacerta has 36 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- 1 Lacerta4.14
- 5 Lacerta4.34
- Beta Lacerta4.42
- HIP 1097544.50
- 11 Lacerta4.50
- 6 Lacerta4.52
- 2 Lacerta4.55
- 4 Lacerta4.55