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Star profile

6 Hydrae

3D likeness based on its real data · class K · ~4,200 K

What is 6 Hydrae

6 Hydrae is an orange giant with quiet chemical oddities: its atmosphere shows carbon-enriched traces, a subtle signature of stellar ageing. Swollen past thirty solar radii, it pours out a warm glow that also lights up the infrared, where circumstellar dust is suspected. Its light takes almost four centuries to reach Earth, cool yet immense.

Where it is and when to see it

6 Hydrae lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is February: 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.

Find it on the sky map

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.

Write my signature

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 6 Hydrae

Constellation
Hydra
Apparent magnitude
4.98
Distance
388.3 light years
Coordinates (J2000)
RA 130.006° · Dec -12.475°
Catalogue
HIP 42509 · HD 73840

A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.

Other stars in Hydra

Hydra has 121 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.

See all 121 stars in Hydra