The AsterNym star registry
Alchiba
Alchiba: the yellow-white star of Corvus
yellow-white · Corvus · α Crv
Alchiba is a yellow-white star, a near cousin of our own Sun's colour in the constellation Corvus, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 4.02 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Alchiba 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
Alchiba at a glance
- Constellation
- Corvus
- Other name
- α Crv
- Catalogue number
- HIP 59199
- Distance
- ≈ 49 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.02 naked-eye
- Star type
- F0IV/V
- Colour
- yellow-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 12h 08m 25s
- Declination
- −24° 43′ 44″
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 Alchiba?
Alchiba is a yellow-white subgiant. Its surface runs about 6,000 to 7,500°C, a shade hotter than the Sun. 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.
A little brighter and a little shorter-lived than the Sun, and near the edge of the range where a planet could plausibly hold liquid water for long enough to matter.
A star of this class gets two to four thousand million years.
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.
Alchiba drifts about 10.8 arcseconds a century against the stars behind it. Slow by any human measure, and still enough that the sky your distant descendants see will not be the one in your photographs.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Alchiba left in 1977, which puts it roughly a lifetime ago. Nobody has invented anything since then that the light knows about; it has simply been travelling.
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 Alchiba mean?
The latter appeared in the catalogue of stars in the Calendarium of Al Achsasi al Mouakket, which was translated into Latin as, 'beak of the crow'.
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 Alchiba dedication represent?
Alchiba 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 Corvus in the sky.”
Where can you see Alchiba?
It sits 25° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 65°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 25°S. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.02 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Alchiba belongs to Corvus.
What does Alchiba mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Alchiba, 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, Alchiba stands at 12° Libra at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 1 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 Alchiba 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 Alchiba →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Alchiba dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Alchiba's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Alchiba keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Alchiba
- What does Alchiba mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Alchiba. Projected onto the zodiac, Alchiba stands at 12° Libra, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 1 October.
- Is Alchiba the brightest star?
- Alchiba shines at magnitude 4.02 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Alchiba?
- Alchiba is approximately 49 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 49 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Alchiba?
- Alchiba is part of Corvus.
- Can everyone see Alchiba?
- It sits 25° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 65°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 25°S. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.02 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Alchiba an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Alchiba 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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