Star profile

HIP 21253

3D likeness based on its real data · class K · ~4,200 K

What is HIP 21253

Reticulum, that southern grid born of the eighteenth-century telescope, hosts an orange star whose light set out a hundred and forty-seven years ago, just as Edison was patenting the incandescent lamp and the world was learning to illuminate itself anew. Its surface, cooler than the Sun’s, gives it that amber tone typical of ageing giants. Although astronomically close, its modest apparent brilliance reminds us that visible magnitude depends as much on intrinsic fire as on the distance between two gazes.

Where it is and when to see it

HIP 21253 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.

Find it on the sky map

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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

If you don't have an account yet, we'll ask for an email to confirm it's you: we send you a link and that's it, no password.

Write my signature

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 HIP 21253

Constellation: Reticulum
Apparent magnitude: 5.79
Distance: 147.3 light years
Coordinates (J2000): RA 68.392° · Dec -62.824°
Catalogue: HIP 21253 · HD 29399

A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.

Other stars in Reticulum

Reticulum has 16 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.

See all 16 stars in Reticulum