Star profile
12 Virginis
What is 12 Virginis
12 Virginis is a white A-type star roughly 164 light-years away, a close distance in stellar terms. It shines in the northern wing of the Virgin, that broad spring constellation the Sun crosses at the start of northern autumn. The light reaching us tonight slipped away in the middle of the nineteenth century, in the years when Neptune was being discovered through pure calculation and spectroscopy was beginning to unravel the matter of the stars.
Where it is and when to see it
12 Virginis lies in the northern 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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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 12 Virginis
- Constellation
- Virgo
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.85
- Distance
- 163.7 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 183.358° · Dec 10.262°
- Catalogue
- HIP 59608 · HD 106251
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Virgo
Virgo has 99 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- SpicaAlpha Virginis0.98
- PorrimaGamma Virginis2.74
- VindemiatrixEpsilon Virginis2.85
- 66 Virginis5.76
- 44 Virginis5.79
- HIP 641795.79
- HIP 699295.86
- 25 Virginis5.88