Star profile
Beta Caelum
What is Beta Caelum
Beta Caeli is the brightest star of the Chisel, a constellation so tiny and unassuming that it slips easily unnoticed between Eridanus and Columba. Lacaille drew it in the eighteenth century to represent the engraver's tools. It is a yellow-white type-F star some 93 light-years away —an intimate distance in cosmic terms: its light set out for us in the early twentieth century.
Where it is and when to see it
Beta Caelum lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is November: 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 Caelum
- Constellation
- Caelum
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.04
- Distance
- 93.5 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 70.514° · Dec -37.144°
- Catalogue
- HIP 21861 · HD 29992
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Caelum
Caelum has 7 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
See all 7 stars in Caelum