AsterNymAsterNym

The star catalogue

Explore the named stars

Browse officially recognised named stars, their constellations and their astronomical facts, from Sirius and Vega to names drawn from star traditions around the world. Choose one you love, then we’ll check whether it was above the horizon at the moment that matters.

580 IAU-named stars currently indexed by AsterNym · catalogue version asternym-bright-1 (Hipparcos-derived, J2000) · index last updated 2026-09-09. The IAU Catalog of Star Names is a living list that keeps adding names; this index is a snapshot of it. J2000 catalogue coordinates, which can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases.

Find their birth-sky stars →
Sort580 stars
Sirius

Canis Major · blue-white

naked-eye

Magnitude -1.46 · 8.6 ly

✦ Dedicated to “SMC”
Canopus

Carina · white

naked-eye

Magnitude -0.74 · 310 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Charles”
Procyon

Canis Minor · yellow-white

naked-eye

Magnitude 0.34 · 11.5 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Julien Laurent”
Altair

Aquila · white

naked-eye

Magnitude 0.77 · 16.7 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Jordan Blake”
Aldebaran

Taurus · warm orange

naked-eye

Magnitude 0.85 · 65 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Rina Wijaya”
Spica

Virgo · blue

naked-eye

Magnitude 0.98 · 250 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Megan Lawson”
Deneb

Cygnus · white

naked-eye

Magnitude 1.25 · 2,615 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Kevin Pierce”
Regulus

Leo · blue-white

naked-eye

Magnitude 1.36 · 79 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Isabella Romano”
Adhara

Canis Major · blue

naked-eye

Magnitude 1.50 · 430 ly

✦ Dedicated to “Jacob Bennett”
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Which of these can be dedicated?

Only the stars that were above the horizon at a given birth minute, which is a different set for every person and place. Open the finder and it reads that sky for you, then confirms each star’s eligibility.

Find their birth-sky stars →

The whole catalogue

Every star, by constellation

All 580 named stars AsterNym can dedicate, in 79 constellations, brightest first. Each opens the star’s own page.

Andromeda

Antlia

Apus

Aquarius

Aquila

Ara

Aries

Auriga

Boötes

Camelopardalis

Cancer

Canes Venatici

Canis Major

Canis Minor

Capricornus

Carina

Cassiopeia

Centaurus

Cepheus

Cetus

Chamaeleon

  • Ceibo · HD 63454 · mag 9.4

Circinus

  • Xami · α Cir · mag 3.2
  • Sapaki · WR 67-1 · mag 16.3

Columba

Coma Berenices

Corona Australis

Corona Borealis

Corvus

Crater

Crux

Cygnus

Delphinus

Dorado

Draco

Equuleus

Eridanus

Fornax

  • Dalim · α For · mag 3.9
  • Intan · HD 20868 · mag 9.9
  • Diya · WASP-72 · mag 10.8

Gemini

Grus

Hercules

Hydra

Lacerta

Leo

Leo Minor

Lepus

  • Arneb · α Lep · mag 2.6
  • Nihal · β Lep · mag 2.8
  • Ping · ε Lep · mag 3.2
  • Bade · μ Lep · mag 3.3
  • Darlugal · ζ Lep · mag 3.5

Libra

Lupus

Lynx

Lyra

Mensa

Microscopium

Monoceros

Norma

Octans

Ophiuchus

Orion

Pavo

Pegasus

Perseus

Phoenix

Pisces

Piscis Austrinus

Puppis

  • Naos · ζ Pup · mag 2.3
  • Ahadi · π Pup · mag 2.7
  • Tureis · ρ Pup · mag 2.8
  • Pipit · ν Pup · mag 3.2
  • Azmidi · ξ Pup · mag 3.3
  • Nosaxa · HD 48265 · mag 8.1
  • Moth · HD 61005 · mag 8.2
  • Tislit · WASP-161 · mag 10.8

Reticulum

  • Rhombus · α Ret · mag 3.4
  • Tupi · HD 23079 · mag 7.1

Sagitta

  • Telum · γ Sge · mag 3.5
  • Zuoqi · δ Sge · mag 3.8
  • Shakh · β Sge · mag 4.4
  • Sham · α Sge · mag 4.4
  • Uruk · HD 231701 · mag 9.0
  • Sansuna · HAT-P-34 · mag 10.3

Sagittarius

Scorpius

Sculptor

Scutum

Serpens

  • Unukalhai · α Ser · mag 2.6
  • Zhou · β Ser · mag 3.7
  • Gudja · κ Ser · mag 4.1
  • Alya · θ1 Ser · mag 4.6
  • Alasia · HD 168746 · mag 8.0
  • Kaveh · HD 175541 · mag 8.0

Sextans

Taurus

Triangulum

Triangulum Australe

  • Atria · α TrA · mag 1.9

Tucana

Ursa Major

Ursa Minor

Vela

Virgo

Vulpecula

  • Anser · α Vul · mag 4.4

Questions about the catalogue

Which stars are in the AsterNym star catalogue?

580 stars across 79 constellations, each with a name approved by the International Astronomical Union. 172 are the bright stars drawn on the birth-sky map, including every traditionally named star of magnitude 3.0 or brighter. The other 408 come from later additions to the IAU Catalog of Star Names, among them fainter stars named from sky traditions around the world and stars known to host planets. 455 of the 580 are bright enough to see without a telescope under a dark sky.

Where do the star names come from?

From the IAU Working Group on Star Names (WGSN), which the International Astronomical Union set up in 2016 to approve one official proper name per star. Many of the bright-star names are old: Aldebaran and Betelgeuse come from Arabic, Sirius from Greek and Capella from Latin. Newer names come from the sky lore of other cultures and from the IAU's NameExoWorlds contests, where the public in different countries named stars that host planets. The WGSN publishes them as the IAU Catalog of Star Names, and this catalogue is a snapshot of that list.

How do I find a star in the catalogue?

Search by name, by Bayer designation such as α CMa, by HIP number or by constellation, then sort by brightness, distance or name. The full list above groups every star by constellation, brightest first, and each name opens the star's own page. To find it in the real sky, copy the right ascension and declination from that page into a planetarium app or star chart; the coordinates use the J2000 epoch those tools expect.

Why do some stars have no distance listed?

9 stars in the catalogue have no distance quoted, because the published parallax is too uncertain to turn into a figure we'd stand behind, or no parallax has been published. For most of them the error runs from a sixth to two fifths of the parallax; for two supergiants it's larger than the parallax itself. Siwarha is a special case: its name belongs to a suspected companion of Betelgeuse, not a separately measured star. Each of these star pages says why its distance is missing.