Star profile
Kappa Aquilae
Hot blue starWhat is Kappa Aquilae
Kappa Aquilae is a colossus hidden inside Aquila: a blue hypergiant of fifteen solar masses, fifty-two thousand times more luminous than the Sun, only eleven million years old. From over sixteen hundred light-years away its light reaches us faint —a mere spark— yet that spark is one of the great beacons of the galaxy.
Where it is and when to see it
Kappa Aquilae lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is July: 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 Kappa Aquilae
- Constellation
- Aquila
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.93
- Distance
- 1681.4 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 294.223° · Dec -7.027°
- Catalogue
- HIP 96483 · HD 184915
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Aquila
Aquila has 72 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- AltairAlpha Aquilae0.76
- TarazedGamma Aquilae2.72
- OkabZeta Aquilae2.99
- LibertasXi Aquilae4.71
- 69 Aquilae4.91
- 70 Aquilae4.91
- Rho Aquilae4.94
- 26 Aquilae4.98