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A dedicated star
Castula
golden · Cassiopeia · υ2 Cas
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, Castula becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Castula at a glance
- Constellation
- Cassiopeia
- Other name
- υ2 Cas
- Catalogue number
- HIP 4422
- Distance
- ≈ 200 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.62 naked-eye
- Star type
- G8III-IV
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 00h 56m 40s
- Declination
- +59° 10′ 52″
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 Castula?
Castula is a yellow giant. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. A yellow star still in the steady part of its life would burn for about ten 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 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.
Castula drifts about 10.3 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 arriving from Castula tonight left in about 1826, some 200 years ago. Everything that has happened since, every person you have heard of from the last few centuries, happened while it was in transit.
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 Castula mean?
This star bore the name Castula in Bayer's Uranometria, which is Latin for a type of woman's tunic.
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 Castula?
It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 31°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 59°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.62 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Castula belongs to Cassiopeia.
What does Castula mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Castula, 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, Castula stands at 12° Taurus at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 2 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.
Frequently asked questions about Castula
- What does Castula mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Castula. Projected onto the zodiac, Castula stands at 12° Taurus, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 2 May.
- Is Castula the brightest star?
- Castula shines at magnitude 4.62 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Castula?
- Castula is approximately 200 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 200 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Castula?
- Castula is part of Cassiopeia.
- Can everyone see Castula?
- It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 31°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 59°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.62 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Castula an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Castula 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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