Star profile
Iota Pictor
What is Iota Pictor
Iota Pictoris is a yellow-white type F star glittering some 136 light-years away, in the Painter's Easel, a constellation drawn by Lacaille in the eighteenth century during his great cartography of the southern sky from the Cape of Good Hope. The region is famed for its neighbour Beta Pictoris, around which one of the first directly imaged protoplanetary discs was discovered.
Where it is and when to see it
Iota Pictor 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 Iota Pictor
- Constellation
- Pictor
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.58
- Distance
- 135.6 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 72.731° · Dec -53.462°
- Catalogue
- HIP 22531 · HD 31203
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Pictor
Pictor has 23 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Alpha Pictor3.24
- Beta Pictor3.85
- Gamma Pictor4.50
- Eta 1 Pictor5.37
- Zeta Pictor5.44
- HIP 257685.46
- Nu Pictor5.60
- HIP 284845.65