Star profile
51 Hydrae
What is 51 Hydrae
51 Hydrae is an orange giant that has left its nuclear youth behind: it spent the hydrogen at its core and swelled past ten solar radii, radiating a warmer, older red than the Sun. The constellation Hydra winds across the southern sky, long and quiet, and this star is one of its warm points. Its light takes some one hundred and sixty years to reach us.
Where it is and when to see it
51 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 May: 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 51 Hydrae
- Constellation
- Hydra
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.78
- Distance
- 157.4 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 215.774° · Dec -27.754°
- Catalogue
- HIP 70306 · HD 125932
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
- HIP 463714.72
- HIP 475224.76
- 26 Hydrae4.77
- 27 Hydrae4.80
- 9 Hydrae4.87