Star profile
2 Canum Venaticorum
Cool red starWhat is 2 Canum Venaticorum
2 Canum Venaticorum is a red giant, an M star so swollen that its radius exceeds about fifty solar radii. If it took the Sun's place, it would swallow Mercury without stopping and reach close to Venus's orbit. Its cool, reddish light crosses nearly eight hundred years to get here: it left in the late thirteenth century, when Arab and Latin astronomers were sharing tables and catalogues of the sky.
Where it is and when to see it
2 Canum Venaticorum 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 2 Canum Venaticorum
- Constellation
- Canes Venatici
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.69
- Distance
- 771.2 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 184.031° · Dec 40.660°
- Catalogue
- HIP 59831 · HD 106690
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Canes Venatici
Canes Venatici has 33 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Cor CaroliAlpha 2 Canum Venaticorum2.89
- CharaBeta Canum Venaticorum4.24
- 24 Canum Venaticorum4.68
- Cor Caroli BAlpha 1 Canum Venaticorum5.61
- HIP 673845.61
- HIP 639165.64
- HIP 630245.75
- 19 Canum Venaticorum5.77