Star profile
3 Centauri
Variable starWhat is 3 Centauri
3 Centauri is a blue B-type star whose brightness does not stay still: it oscillates faintly over time, a stellar breathing that astronomers catalogue as variability. Its light crosses more than three hundred and forty years of space before reaching us, arriving from one of the oldest constellations of the southern hemisphere. In the sky it appears discreet, yet its nature —hot, massive, restless— places it among the young and violent inhabitants of the southern Milky Way.
Where it is and when to see it
3 Centauri lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is April: 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 3 Centauri
- Constellation
- Centaurus
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.32
- Distance
- 343.7 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 207.957° · Dec -32.994°
- Catalogue
- HIP 67669 · HD 120709
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Centaurus
Centaurus has 174 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Rigil KentaurusAlpha 1 Centauri-0.01
- HadarBeta Centauri0.61
- TolimanAlpha 2 Centauri1.35
- Xi 2 Centauri4.27
- HIP 576694.30
- HIP 700694.30
- HIP 628674.33
- Upsilon 2 Centauri4.34