Star profile
HIP 46701
Variable starWhat is HIP 46701
Orange, slow, blinking. This K-type giant rests in the keel of Vela, where its brightness shifts night after night following an internal pulse astronomers still chart. The light reaching the telescope tonight set out around 1786, while Mozart premiered «The Marriage of Figaro» in Vienna. Two hundred and thirty-nine years of travel for a warm flicker barely visible to the naked eye in the southern sky.
Where it is and when to see it
HIP 46701 lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is March: 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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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 46701
- Constellation
- Vela
- Apparent magnitude
- 3.16
- Distance
- 239.0 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 142.806° · Dec -57.034°
- Catalogue
- HIP 46701 · HD 82668
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Vela
Vela has 127 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Gamma 2 Velorum1.75
- AlsephinaDelta Velorum1.93
- SuhailLambda Velorum2.23
- MarkebKappa Velorum2.47
- Mu Velorum2.69
- Phi Velorum3.52
- Omicron Velorum3.60
- Psi Velorum3.60