Star profile
Delta Dorado
What is Delta Dorado
Delta Doradus plays a little-known role: every 18.6 years it becomes the Moon's pole star. When its turn comes, it aligns with the lunar rotation axis even more precisely than our own Polaris, though it is much fainter. It is a white A7-type star 150 light-years away, in the southern constellation of the Goldfish, close on the sky to the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Where it is and when to see it
Delta Dorado 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.
It opens in your browser. Free, no account, nothing to install.
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.
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 Delta Dorado
- Constellation
- Dorado
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.34
- Distance
- 149.6 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 86.193° · Dec -65.736°
- Catalogue
- HIP 27100 · HD 39014
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Dorado
Dorado has 18 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Alpha Dorado3.30
- Beta Dorado3.76
- Gamma Dorado4.26
- HIP 278904.65
- Zeta Dorado4.71
- Theta Dorado4.81
- Eta 2 Dorado5.01
- Nu Dorado5.06