Star profile
Beta Pictor
What is Beta Pictor
Beta Pictoris is one of the most celebrated young stars in modern astronomy. Barely 12 million years old, it is surrounded by a nearly edge-on debris disk —the first ever directly imaged around another star— in which at least two giant planets, Beta Pic b and c, have been confirmed. At 63 light-years, in the Painter's Easel, it remains a living laboratory where the processes that shaped our own Solar System unfold in real time.
Where it is and when to see it
Beta 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 December: 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 Pictor
- Constellation
- Pictor
- Apparent magnitude
- 3.85
- Distance
- 63.4 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 86.821° · Dec -51.067°
- Catalogue
- HIP 27321 · HD 39060
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
- Gamma Pictor4.50
- Delta Pictor4.72
- HIP 289915.04
- Eta 2 Pictor5.05
- HIP 276215.16
- HIP 309325.20
- HIP 279475.29