Star profile
Alpha Telescopium
Hot blue starWhat is Alpha Telescopium
Alpha Telescopii is the dominant light of a modern constellation, the Telescope, drawn in the eighteenth century by Lacaille in honour of the instrument that opened the southern sky. A blue B3 subgiant, it burns at 16,700 K and radiates close to 800 solar luminosities from 278 light-years away. Five times the Sun's mass, with a longitudinal magnetic field measured in hundreds of gauss, it has already begun to leave the main sequence.
Where it is and when to see it
Alpha Telescopium 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 Alpha Telescopium
- Constellation
- Telescopium
- Apparent magnitude
- 3.49
- Distance
- 277.9 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 276.743° · Dec -45.968°
- Catalogue
- HIP 90422 · HD 169467
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Telescopium
Telescopium has 27 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Zeta Telescopium4.10
- Epsilon Telescopium4.52
- Lambda Telescopium4.85
- Iota Telescopium4.88
- Delta 1 Telescopium4.92
- Xi Telescopium4.93
- Eta Telescopium5.03
- Delta 2 Telescopium5.07