
Star profile
Kappa 1 Volans
Hot blue starWhat is Kappa 1 Volans
Kappa-1 Volantis is the brightest member of a southern quadruple system: a blue-white star with nearly three solar masses and an invisible companion betrayed only by tiny spectral shifts. It shines with 129 solar luminosities at a surface temperature close to 9,900 K. It lies 435 light-years away in Volans, the Flying Fish, a modern constellation drawn by sixteenth-century navigators under the southern sky.
Where it is and when to see it
Kappa 1 Volans lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is April: 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 Kappa 1 Volans
- Constellation
- Volans
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.33
- Distance
- 434.9 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 124.954° · Dec -71.515°
- Catalogue
- HIP 40817 · HD 71046
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Volans
Volans has 19 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Beta Volans3.77
- Gamma 2 Volans3.78
- Zeta Volans3.93
- HIP 336825.18
- Theta Volans5.19
- Eta Volans5.28
- HIP 434145.34
- Iota Volans5.41