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A dedicated star
Aspidiske
yellow-white · Carina · ι Car
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, Aspidiske becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Aspidiske at a glance
- Constellation
- Carina
- Other name
- ι Car
- Catalogue number
- HIP 45556
- Distance
- ≈ 690 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.25 naked-eye
- Star type
- A9 Ib
- Colour
- yellow-white
- Best seen from
- The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 09h 17m 06s
- Declination
- −59° 16′ 30″
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 Aspidiske?
Aspidiske is a white supergiant. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. A white star still in the steady part of its life would burn for about a thousand million 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 supergiant, which means it has left the stable part of its life and swollen enormously. Put it where the Sun is and its surface would swallow the inner planets. Stars this size do not fade quietly; this one will end as a supernova, and on a human timescale that could be tonight or in a million years.
The light you are looking at is old
Aspidiske is about 690 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1336. 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 Aspidiske mean?
Turais is the Arabic تُرَيْس turais "small shield" (diminutive), while Aspidiske and Scutulum are Greek and Latin translations from ασπίδα and scūtum.
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 Aspidiske?
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 31°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 59°S. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.25 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Aspidiske belongs to Carina.
What does Aspidiske mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Aspidiske, 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, Aspidiske stands at 5° Libra at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 24 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 Aspidiske
- What does Aspidiske mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Aspidiske. Projected onto the zodiac, Aspidiske stands at 5° Libra, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 24 September.
- Is Aspidiske the brightest star?
- Aspidiske shines at magnitude 2.25 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Aspidiske?
- Aspidiske is approximately 690 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 690 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Aspidiske?
- Aspidiske is part of Carina.
- Can everyone see Aspidiske?
- 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 31°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 59°S. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.25 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Aspidiske an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Aspidiske 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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