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A dedicated star
Ayeyarwady
golden · Eridanus · HD 18742
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, Ayeyarwady becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Ayeyarwady at a glance
- Constellation
- Eridanus
- Other name
- HD 18742
- Catalogue number
- HIP 13993
- Distance
- ≈ 441 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 7.81 telescope
- Star type
- G8/K0IV
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 03h 00m 11s
- Declination
- −20° 48′ 09″
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 Ayeyarwady?
Ayeyarwady 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.
Ayeyarwady barely moves against the background sky, which is mostly a statement about how far away it is. For every practical purpose, including yours, it is fixed.
The light you are looking at is old
Ayeyarwady is about 441 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1585. 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 sits at the edge of what an unaided eye can do, so finding it is a deliberate act rather than an accident.
Where can you see Ayeyarwady?
It sits 21° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 69°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 21°S. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.81 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Ayeyarwady belongs to Eridanus.
What does Ayeyarwady mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Ayeyarwady, 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, Ayeyarwady stands at 5° Taurus at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 25 April 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 Ayeyarwady
- What does Ayeyarwady mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Ayeyarwady. Projected onto the zodiac, Ayeyarwady stands at 5° Taurus, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 25 April.
- Is Ayeyarwady the brightest star?
- Ayeyarwady shines at magnitude 7.81 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Ayeyarwady?
- Ayeyarwady is approximately 441 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 441 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Ayeyarwady?
- Ayeyarwady is part of Eridanus.
- Can everyone see Ayeyarwady?
- It sits 21° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 69°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 21°S. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.81 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Ayeyarwady an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Ayeyarwady 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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