The AsterNym star registry
Alcyone
Alcyone: the blue-white star of Taurus
blue-white · Taurus · η Tau
Alcyone is a blue-white star, the colour of the hottest, youngest suns in the constellation Taurus, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 2.87 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Alcyone 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
Alcyone at a glance
- Constellation
- Taurus
- Other name
- η Tau
- Catalogue number
- HIP 17702
- Distance
- ≈ 440 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.87 naked-eye
- Star type
- B7 III
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 03h 47m 28s
- Declination
- +24° 06′ 18″
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 Alcyone?
Alcyone is a blue-white giant. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. A blue-white star still in the steady part of its life would burn for tens of millions of years. This one is past that stage, and it is cool at the surface because it has swollen outward, not because it was born this way.
It is a giant, which is what a star becomes when it exhausts the hydrogen in its core. It has swollen outward and cooled at the surface, and it is now brighter than it ever was as a young star. The Sun will do this too, in about five thousand million years.
The light you are looking at is old
Alcyone is about 440 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1586. 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 Alcyone mean?
The meaning(s) of the words is uncertain because alkyón is considered to be of pre-Greek, non-Indo-European origin.
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 Alcyone dedication represent?
Alcyone 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 Taurus in the sky.”
Where can you see Alcyone?
It sits 24° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 66°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 24°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.87 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Alcyone belongs to Taurus.
What does Alcyone mean in astrology?
Brightest of the Pleiades, the weeping sisters. The tradition ties the cluster to sorrow and to vision: ambitious sight beyond the ordinary, historically read with caution around the eyes themselves.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Alcyone stands at 29° Taurus at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 20 May 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 Alcyone 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 Alcyone →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Alcyone dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Alcyone's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Alcyone keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Alcyone
- What does Alcyone mean in astrology?
- Brightest of the Pleiades, the weeping sisters. The tradition ties the cluster to sorrow and to vision: ambitious sight beyond the ordinary, historically read with caution around the eyes themselves. Projected onto the zodiac, Alcyone stands at 29° Taurus, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 20 May.
- Is Alcyone the brightest star?
- Alcyone shines at magnitude 2.87 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Alcyone?
- Alcyone is approximately 440 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 440 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Alcyone?
- Alcyone is part of Taurus.
- Can everyone see Alcyone?
- It sits 24° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 66°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 24°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.87 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Alcyone an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Alcyone 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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