Star profile
17 Sextantis
What is 17 Sextantis
17 Sextantis shines with the white light of an A-class star about 596 light-years away, in the small constellation of Sextans, drawn by Hevelius in the seventeenth century in honour of the instrument. Its distance demands a noticeable intrinsic brightness for it still to be visible from Earth. The light we now see left in the early fifteenth century, in the height of the Italian Quattrocento.
Where it is and when to see it
17 Sextantis 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 17 Sextantis
- Constellation
- Sextans
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.91
- Distance
- 596.3 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 152.531° · Dec -8.408°
- Catalogue
- HIP 49812 · HD 88195
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Sextans
Sextans has 17 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Alpha Sextantis4.48
- Gamma Sextantis5.07
- Beta Sextantis5.08
- 41 Sextantis5.80
- HIP 529485.85
- HIP 485195.90
- HIP 528635.92
- 25 Sextantis5.93