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A dedicated star
Alsephina
white · Vela · δ Vel
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, Alsephina becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Alsephina at a glance
- Constellation
- Vela
- Other name
- δ Vel
- Catalogue number
- HIP 42913
- Distance
- ≈ 80 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 1.96 naked-eye
- Star type
- A1 V
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 08h 44m 43s
- Declination
- −54° 42′ 31″
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 Alsephina?
Alsephina is a white main-sequence star. Its surface runs around 7,500 to 10,000°C, hot enough to look white or blue-white to the eye. 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.
These are the classic bright white stars. Sirius and Vega are both this kind, and they are the reason people describe stars as white when most of the galaxy's stars are actually red and too faint to see.
A star of this class gets roughly a thousand million years, a tenth of what the Sun gets.
It is a main-sequence star, which despite the word dwarf simply means it is in the long stable middle of its life, fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun is doing now.
Alsephina 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 Alsephina left in 1946, 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 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 Alsephina mean?
Delta Velorum bore the traditional name Alsafinah, which stems from the Arabic name al-safīnah meaning "the ship", referring to the ancient Greek constellation Argo Navis, the ship of the Argonauts.
It was first used in a 10th-century Arabic translation of the Almagest, written by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the second century AD.
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 Alsephina?
It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 35°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 55°S. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.96 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Alsephina belongs to Vela.
What does Alsephina mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Alsephina, 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, Alsephina stands at 18° Virgo at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 7 September 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 Alsephina
- What does Alsephina mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Alsephina. Projected onto the zodiac, Alsephina stands at 18° Virgo, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 7 September.
- Is Alsephina the brightest star?
- Alsephina shines at magnitude 1.96 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Alsephina?
- Alsephina is approximately 80 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 80 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Alsephina?
- Alsephina is part of Vela.
- Can everyone see Alsephina?
- It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 35°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 55°S. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.96 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Alsephina an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Alsephina 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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