Star profile
2 Herculis
Cool red starWhat is 2 Herculis
2 Herculis is an M-type red giant 654 light-years away, a cool surface barely hotter than a household oven scaled up to stellar size. It throbs in deep red tones at the southern edge of Hercules, near the border with Ophiuchus. Its light departed shortly before the first Baroque operas premiered in Italy.
Where it is and when to see it
2 Herculis lies in the northern 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 2 Herculis
- Constellation
- Hercules
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.35
- Distance
- 653.7 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 238.658° · Dec 43.139°
- Catalogue
- HIP 77907 · HD 142780
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Hercules
Hercules has 136 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- KornephorosBeta Herculis2.78
- RasalgethiAlpha 1 Herculis2.78
- Zeta Herculis2.81
- 59 Herculis5.27
- 105 Herculis5.30
- 53 Herculis5.34
- 54 Herculis5.35
- 82 Herculis5.35