Star profile
Zeta Monocerotis
Highly luminous starWhat is Zeta Monocerotis
Zeta Monocerotis is a luminous yellow giant lying over a thousand light-years away, set in a faint modern constellation that barely registers to the naked eye. Its light, thousands of times more powerful than the Sun's, crosses interstellar space for an entire millennium before finally touching our telescopes here on Earth. The Unicorn quietly keeps this beacon, bending the dark between Orion and Canis Minor.
Where it is and when to see it
Zeta Monocerotis lies in the southern 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.
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 Zeta Monocerotis
- Constellation
- Monoceros
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.36
- Distance
- 1059.1 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 122.149° · Dec -2.984°
- Catalogue
- HIP 39863 · HD 67594
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Monoceros
Monoceros has 71 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Beta Monocerotis3.76
- Alpha Monocerotis3.94
- Gamma Monocerotis3.99
- Delta Monocerotis4.15
- Epsilon Monocerotis4.39
- 13 Monocerotis4.47
- 18 Monocerotis4.48
- 15 Monocerotis4.66