Star profile
Polaris
Alpha Ursae Minoris · Ursa Minor
Variable starWhat is Polaris
Polaris appears motionless while the entire firmament wheels around it: it sits less than a degree from the northern celestial pole, which made it the silent guide of Phoenician, Viking and Portuguese navigators for centuries. Its yellow-white light takes 432 years to reach us —it set out around the time Galileo first turned his telescope skyward. And though it seems unwavering, it is in fact a Cepheid variable: a beacon that pulses with a rhythm too subtle for the human eye.
Where it is and when to see it
Polaris lies in the northern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is December: 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 Polaris
- Constellation
- Ursa Minor
- Apparent magnitude
- 1.97
- Distance
- 432.6 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 37.946° · Dec 89.264°
- Catalogue
- HIP 11767 · HD 8890
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Ursa Minor
Ursa Minor has 25 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- KochabBeta Ursae Minoris2.07
- PherkadGamma Ursae Minoris3.00
- Epsilon Ursae Minoris4.21
- 5 Ursae Minoris4.25
- Zeta Ursae Minoris4.29
- YildunDelta Ursae Minoris4.35
- HIP 731994.63
- 4 Ursae Minoris4.80