Star profile
Eta 2 Fornax
What is Eta 2 Fornax
Eta-2 Fornacis is an orange K-type giant about 450 light-years away, set in the Furnace, another of the small southern constellations with which Lacaille filled the sky of the Cape in the eighteenth century. Its cool, coppery light is barely visible to the unaided eye in city skies, but at the telescope it reveals the characteristic red of stars that have moved past core hydrogen fusion. It shines in a modest region of the sky, where amateurs find remote galaxies peering out between stars like this one.
Where it is and when to see it
Eta 2 Fornax lies in the southern 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 Eta 2 Fornax
- Constellation
- Fornax
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.92
- Distance
- 449.9 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 42.562° · Dec -35.844°
- Catalogue
- HIP 13225 · HD 17793
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Fornax
Fornax has 26 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- DalimAlpha Fornax3.80
- Beta Fornax4.45
- Nu Fornax4.68
- Epsilon Fornax5.88
- Lambda 1 Fornax5.91
- Sigma Fornax5.91
- Psi Fornax5.93
- HIP 153575.93