The AsterNym star registry
Alshain
Alshain: the golden star of Aquila
golden · Aquila · β Aql
Alshain is a golden star, warmer-toned than our Sun in the constellation Aquila, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 3.71 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Alshain 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
Alshain at a glance
- Constellation
- Aquila
- Other name
- β Aql
- Catalogue number
- HIP 98036
- Distance
- ≈ 45 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.71 naked-eye
- Star type
- G8IVvar
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 19h 55m 19s
- Declination
- +06° 24′ 24″
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 Alshain?
Alshain is a yellow subgiant. Its surface runs about 5,500°C, near enough the Sun's own surface temperature. 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.
This is the Sun's class. Looking at a star like this is the closest you get to seeing what our own star looks like from outside, which is a stranger thought than it first sounds.
A star of this class gets around ten thousand million years, and the Sun is halfway through its own.
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.
Alshain moves noticeably against the background sky, about 48 arcseconds a century. The constellation it belongs to will not have quite this shape in ten thousand years.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Alshain left in 1981, 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 Alshain mean?
The name Tarazed for γ Aquilae is derived from the same Persian term.
In the catalogue of stars in the Calendarium of Al Achsasi al Mouakket, this star was designated Unuk al Ghyrab (عنق ألغراب - únuq al-ghuraab), which was translated into Latin as Collum Corvi, meaning the crow's neck'.
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 Alshain dedication represent?
Alshain 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 Aquila in the sky.”
Where can you see Alshain?
It sits 6° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 84°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 6°N. It stands highest at midnight in July, so July and August evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.71 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Alshain belongs to Aquila.
What does Alshain mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Alshain, 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, Alshain stands at 2° Aquarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 21 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.
Dedicate Alshain 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 Alshain →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Alshain dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Alshain's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Alshain keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Alshain
- What does Alshain mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Alshain. Projected onto the zodiac, Alshain stands at 2° Aquarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 21 January.
- Is Alshain the brightest star?
- Alshain shines at magnitude 3.71 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Alshain?
- Alshain is approximately 45 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 45 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Alshain?
- Alshain is part of Aquila.
- Can everyone see Alshain?
- It sits 6° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 84°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 6°N. It stands highest at midnight in July, so July and August evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.71 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Alshain an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Alshain 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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