Star profile
Beta Horologium
What is Beta Horologium
Beta Horologii is a white A-type star in the small constellation of the Clock, sketched by Lacaille in the eighteenth century from his South African observatory. Some 295 light-years away, its crisp, cool light stands out in a quiet southern region far from the luminous bustle of the Milky Way. There the French abbé christened scientific instruments instead of mythological figures; the Clock, the Keel, the Microscope, the Telescope: this sober white sun shines, then, over a firmament of measuring tools encoded in Enlightenment script.
Where it is and when to see it
Beta Horologium lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is September: 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 Beta Horologium
- Constellation
- Horologium
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.98
- Distance
- 294.7 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 44.699° · Dec -64.071°
- Catalogue
- HIP 13884 · HD 18866
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Horologium
Horologium has 18 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Alpha Horologium3.85
- Delta Horologium4.93
- Mu Horologium5.12
- Zeta Horologium5.21
- Nu Horologium5.25
- Eta Horologium5.30
- HIP 201615.33
- Lambda Horologium5.36