Star profile
Eta Mensa
What is Eta Mensa
Eta Mensae is set within the Table, that singular constellation Lacaille named after Cape Town's Table Mountain, from which he catalogued nearly ten thousand southern stars. An orange type K giant some 668 light-years away, it shines in a region neighbouring the Large Magellanic Cloud, which places it in one of the most evocative corners of the southern sky. Mensa is the only constellation that takes its name from a terrestrial geographic feature.
Where it is and when to see it
Eta Mensa lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is July: 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 Mensa
- Constellation
- Mensa
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.47
- Distance
- 668.4 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 73.796° · Dec -74.937°
- Catalogue
- HIP 22871 · HD 32440
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Mensa
Mensa has 15 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Alpha Mensa5.08
- Gamma Mensa5.18
- Beta Mensa5.30
- Theta Mensa5.45
- Kappa Mensa5.46
- Mu Mensa5.53
- Epsilon Mensa5.54
- Zeta Mensa5.61