Star profile
Pi Herculis
What is Pi Herculis
Pi Herculis marks the northeastern corner of the Keystone, the bright quadrilateral every observer recognizes as the heart of Hercules. Beneath its orange hue hides a luminous giant: about 64 times the Sun's radius and over a thousand times its light, seen from 367 light-years away. A slow six-hundred-day pulse betrays the deep breathing of a star that has already exhausted the hydrogen in its core.
Where it is and when to see it
Pi 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 June: 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 Pi Herculis
- Constellation
- Hercules
- Apparent magnitude
- 3.16
- Distance
- 376.7 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 258.762° · Dec 36.809°
- Catalogue
- HIP 84380 · HD 156283
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
- SarinDelta Herculis3.12
- Mu Herculis3.42
- Eta Herculis3.48
- Xi Herculis3.70
- Gamma Herculis3.74