The AsterNym star registry
Acrux
Acrux: the blue star of Crux
blue · Crux · α Cru
Acrux is a blue star in the constellation Crux, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 0.77 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Acrux is not. Some IAU-recognised names are ancient; others were adopted by the IAU only recently. Either way, the star already has a scientific identity, and a dedication attaches a human story to it.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
See what a dedicated page looks like: preview
Acrux at a glance
- Constellation
- Crux
- Other name
- α Cru
- Catalogue number
- HIP 60718
- Distance
- ≈ 320 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 0.77 naked-eye
- Star type
- B0.5 IV
- Colour
- blue
- Best seen from
- The far southern sky
- Right ascension
- 12h 26m 36s
- Declination
- −63° 05′ 57″
J2000 catalogue coordinates that can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases. A planetarium app showing coordinates of date will differ slightly, because proper motion and precession move a star’s apparent position over time.
What kind of star is Acrux?
Acrux is a blue-white subgiant. Its surface runs somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000°C, which is what gives it a blue-white cast. Colour in a star is a temperature reading rather than a decoration: the hot ones are blue and the cool ones red, the opposite way round to a kitchen tap.
It is spending its fuel at a rate the Sun never will. Most of the bright stars in familiar constellations are this kind, which is why the night sky looks younger and hotter than the average star actually is.
A star of this class gets tens of millions of years, against the Sun's ten thousand million.
It is a subgiant, caught in the short crossing between an ordinary life and a giant one. Its core has run out of hydrogen but its outer layers have not finished expanding, and astronomically this stage passes quickly.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Acrux tonight left in about 1706, some 320 years ago. Everything that has happened since, every person you have heard of from the last few centuries, happened while it was in transit.
That delay is the part people find hardest and like most. A star is the one thing you can give someone that was already old before either of you was born and will outlast anything else you could have chosen.
It is also one of the brighter stars in the sky, which is why it carries a proper name at all rather than a catalogue number.
What does the name Acrux mean?
The name Acrux for α Crucis was coined in the 19th century by American astronomer as a contraction of its Bayer designation.
Name origin from English Wikipedia. AsterNym does not invent an etymology where none is recorded, and most stars in this catalogue have none: they carry modern names, or a catalogue designation and nothing older.
What could a Acrux dedication represent?
Acrux is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Deserves something older than any gift shop
- · Marks a beginning, an anniversary or a promise
- · Is remembered every time you look up
- · Has a light you want recorded somewhere permanent
Dedication idea
“For the one I think of when I find Crux in the sky.”
Where can you see Acrux?
It is a deep-southern star: easy from Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and South America, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 27°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 63°S. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 0.77 it is bright enough to hold its own over city lights.
Acrux belongs to Crux, where it is the brightest star.
What does Acrux mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Acrux, and we don’t invent lore where none exists. What astrology can still read is the star’s real position, below.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Acrux stands at 11° Scorpio at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 31 October in the years around 2000. Fixed-star longitude shifts slowly against the tropical zodiac because of precession, about one degree every seventy-two years, so a natal conjunction must be calculated for the birth year rather than read off this J2000 value or a calendar date.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions. The position and dates are computed.
Dedicate Acrux to someone who matters
A flower fades. A card is eventually put away. A star gives your message a place in the sky.
from$29.95a year
Dedicate Acrux →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Acrux dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Acrux's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Acrux keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Acrux
- What does Acrux mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Acrux. Projected onto the zodiac, Acrux stands at 11° Scorpio, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 31 October.
- Is Acrux the brightest star?
- Acrux shines at magnitude 0.77 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Acrux?
- Acrux is approximately 320 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 320 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Acrux?
- Acrux is the brightest star in Crux.
- Can everyone see Acrux?
- It is a deep-southern star: easy from Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and South America, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 27°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 63°S. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 0.77 it is bright enough to hold its own over city lights.
- Is dedicating Acrux an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Acrux keeps its internationally recognised astronomical name. An AsterNym dedication records your personal name and message in the AsterNym registry without changing the star's scientific identity.
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