Star profile
Tau 2 Hydrae
What is Tau 2 Hydrae
Tau-2 Hydrae is a white A-type star more than five hundred light-years away, set within the immense winding of the sky's longest constellation. Hydra crosses over a quarter of the celestial vault and still echoes the hundred-headed monster slain by Heracles. Tau-2 occupies a hushed stretch of its body —the starlit desert that demands patience and dark sky to reveal itself.
Where it is and when to see it
Tau 2 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.
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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 Tau 2 Hydrae
- Constellation
- Hydra
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.54
- Distance
- 517.8 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 142.996° · Dec -1.185°
- Catalogue
- HIP 46776 · HD 82446
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
- Rho Hydrae4.35
- 58 Hydrae4.42
- MinchirSigma Hydrae4.45
- Tau 1 Hydrae4.59
- Upsilon 2 Hydrae4.60