Star profile
49 Cancri
Variable starWhat is 49 Cancri
49 Cancri burns about 423 light-years away within the modest Crab of the zodiac. It is an Alpha-2 Canum Venaticorum variable —catalogued BI Cancri since 1962— whose brightness slides between magnitude 5.58 and 5.71 every seven days, paced by its rotation. Its atmosphere, peculiar even among A-type stars, shows enhanced lines of silicon, europium and chromium: a magnetic field turns it into a living chemical patchwork, spots that wheel in and out of view as it turns.
Where it is and when to see it
49 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.
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 49 Cancri
- Constellation
- Cancer
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.63
- Distance
- 423.1 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 131.188° · Dec 10.082°
- Catalogue
- HIP 42917 · HD 74521
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
- 3 Cancri5.60
- 15 Cancri5.62
- 45 Cancri5.62
- Sigma 1 Cancri5.67
- Omicron 2 Cancri5.68