Star profile
HIP 85409
Hot blue starWhat is HIP 85409
On the southern Altar burns a blue-white B-type star, a stellar bonfire nearly three thousand light years distant. Its light began its journey around the tenth century BCE, when kings David and Solomon were consolidating Jerusalem and the first Temple was being raised according to biblical chronicles. Hot, massive, and far more luminous than the Sun, from its remoteness it offers but a faint light to the human eye —barely perceptible unaided— yet immense in physical reality.
Where it is and when to see it
HIP 85409 lies in the southern 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 HIP 85409
- Constellation
- Ara
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.90
- Distance
- 2965.5 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 261.802° · Dec -50.630°
- Catalogue
- HIP 85409 · HD 157662
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Ara
Ara has 43 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Beta Ara2.84
- Alpha Ara2.84
- Zeta Ara3.12
- HIP 850495.86
- HIP 842485.87
- HIP 862485.89
- HIP 826725.91
- HIP 847315.93