Star profile
HIP 26169
Variable starWhat is HIP 26169
In the small southern constellation Mensa pulses a red M-type giant, a variable star, cool and vast, whose brightness sways to the rhythm of century-long breaths. Its light travelled close to 1,087 years of darkness to reach here, setting out when the caliphate of Córdoba lived its splendour and the translators of the Toledo school had not yet been born. It arrives now with a soft heartbeat, the visible echo of a twilight sun.
Where it is and when to see it
HIP 26169 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 HIP 26169
- Constellation
- Mensa
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.79
- Distance
- 1087.3 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 83.687° · Dec -73.741°
- Catalogue
- HIP 26169 · HD 37993
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
- Pi Mensa5.65
- Delta Mensa5.67
- HIP 162905.68
- Nu Mensa5.78
- Xi Mensa5.84