Star profile
HIP 46618
What is HIP 46618
In the serpent Hydra, the largest of all constellations, beats an orange K-type star, cooler than the Sun and warm in tone. Its glow travels around 238 years to reach us: what arrives today set out about 1788, when creoles of the American colonies were starting to read Rousseau and the French Revolution was about to set Europe ablaze. Hydra glides slowly across the southern sky, faithful to its size and silence.
Where it is and when to see it
HIP 46618 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.
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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 HIP 46618
- Constellation
- Hydra
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.86
- Distance
- 238.5 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 142.594° · Dec -15.577°
- Catalogue
- HIP 46618 · HD 82232
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.
- AlphardAlpha Hydrae1.99
- Gamma Hydrae2.99
- Zeta Hydrae3.11
- HIP 455595.83
- 60 Hydrae5.83
- HIP 578415.85
- HIP 617205.86
- HIP 528415.87