Star profile
Beta Lupi
Hot blue starWhat is Beta Lupi
Beta Lupi —once Romanised as Kekouan from a Chinese name meaning «fourth imperial guard»— burns above 24,000 K within the body of the southern Wolf. A blue giant of about nine solar masses, still young at twenty-five million years, it pulses every five hours as a Beta Cephei variable. When its hydrogen runs out it will hesitate at the edge of detonation: a credible, if uncertain, candidate to end as a supernova.
Where it is and when to see it
Beta Lupi 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.
It opens in your browser. Free, no account, nothing to install.
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
If you don't have an account yet, we'll ask for an email to confirm it's you: we send you a link and that's it, no password.
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 Beta Lupi
- Constellation
- Lupus
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.68
- Distance
- 382.9 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 224.633° · Dec -43.134°
- Catalogue
- HIP 73273 · HD 132058
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Lupus
Lupus has 74 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Alpha Lupi2.30
- Gamma Lupi2.80
- Delta Lupi3.22
- Epsilon Lupi3.37
- Zeta Lupi3.41
- Eta Lupi3.42
- Iota Lupi3.55
- Phi 1 Lupi3.57