The AsterNym star registry
Chamukuy
Chamukuy: the white star of Taurus
white · Taurus · θ2 Tau
Chamukuy is a white star, burning hotter than our own Sun in the constellation Taurus, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 3.73 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Chamukuy 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
Chamukuy at a glance
- Constellation
- Taurus
- Other name
- θ2 Tau
- Catalogue number
- HIP 20894
- Distance
- ≈ 150 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.73 naked-eye
- Star type
- A7III
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 04h 28m 40s
- Declination
- +15° 52′ 15″
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 Chamukuy?
Chamukuy is a white giant. 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 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.
Chamukuy drifts about 11.2 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 Chamukuy tonight left in about 1876, some 150 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 could a Chamukuy dedication represent?
Chamukuy 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 Taurus in the sky.”
Where can you see Chamukuy?
It sits 16° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 74°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 16°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.73 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Chamukuy belongs to Taurus.
What does Chamukuy mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Chamukuy, 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, Chamukuy stands at 7° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 28 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.
Dedicate Chamukuy 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 Chamukuy →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Chamukuy dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Chamukuy's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Chamukuy keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Chamukuy
- What does Chamukuy mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Chamukuy. Projected onto the zodiac, Chamukuy stands at 7° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 28 May.
- Is Chamukuy the brightest star?
- Chamukuy shines at magnitude 3.73 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Chamukuy?
- Chamukuy is approximately 150 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 150 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Chamukuy?
- Chamukuy is part of Taurus.
- Can everyone see Chamukuy?
- It sits 16° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 74°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 16°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.73 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Chamukuy an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Chamukuy 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.
Explore nearby stars
