Star profile
5 Cancri
Hot blue starWhat is 5 Cancri
5 Cancri sits 540 light-years away in Cancer, a modest but ancient zodiacal constellation. It is a Be-type star: it spins so fast that it has built around itself a faint disc of gas, with a radius about three times that of the star itself. Hot and blue, of class B, it looks calm to the naked eye, but its spectrum reveals a turbulent surface and an environment in constant reconfiguration.
Where it is and when to see it
5 Cancri lies in the northern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is January: 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 5 Cancri
- Constellation
- Cancer
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.99
- Distance
- 540.1 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 120.376° · Dec 16.455°
- Catalogue
- HIP 39236 · HD 65873
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Cancer
Cancer has 49 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- TarfBeta Cancri3.53
- Asellus AustralisDelta Cancri3.94
- Iota Cancri4.03
- 29 Cancri5.94
- 75 Cancri5.95
- Mu 1 Cancri5.96
- HIP 423655.96
- CopernicusRho 1 Cancri5.96