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A dedicated star
Aladfar
blue-white · Lyra · η Lyr
Dedicated to
Maya
by Her sister, June · August 12, 2026
“You were born on the brightest night of my life. Whenever you feel small, remember: there is a star that has carried your name since before you could read it, and it is still up there, still burning, still yours.”
This dedication
- Dedicated to
- Maya
- Dedicated by
- Her sister, June
- Recorded
- August 12, 2026
- Held until
- August 12, 2027
When this dedication ends, Aladfar becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Aladfar at a glance
- Constellation
- Lyra
- Other name
- η Lyr
- Catalogue number
- HIP 94481
- Distance
- ≈ 1,388 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.43 naked-eye
- Star type
- B2.5IV
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 19h 13m 45s
- Declination
- +39° 08′ 45″
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 Aladfar?
Aladfar 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.
Aladfar barely moves against the background sky, which is mostly a statement about how far away it is. For every practical purpose, including yours, it is fixed.
The light you are looking at is old
Aladfar is about 1,388 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 638. You are not looking at the star as it is. You are looking at the star as it was, and there is no way to see it any other way.
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 comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
What does the name Aladfar mean?
Eta Lyrae bore the traditional name Aladfar, from the Arabic الأظفر al-ʼuẓfur "the talons (of the swooping eagle)", a name it shares with Mu Lyrae (though the latter is typically spelled Alathfar).
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.
Where can you see Aladfar?
It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 51°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 39°N. It stands highest at midnight in July, so July and August evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.43 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Aladfar belongs to Lyra.
What does Aladfar mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Aladfar, 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, Aladfar stands at 0° Aquarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 18 January 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.
Frequently asked questions about Aladfar
- What does Aladfar mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Aladfar. Projected onto the zodiac, Aladfar stands at 0° Aquarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 18 January.
- Is Aladfar the brightest star?
- Aladfar shines at magnitude 4.43 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Aladfar?
- Aladfar is approximately 1,388 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 1,388 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Aladfar?
- Aladfar is part of Lyra.
- Can everyone see Aladfar?
- It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 51°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 39°N. It stands highest at midnight in July, so July and August evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.43 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Aladfar an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Aladfar 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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