Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Chi Eridani
warm orange · Eridanus · χ Eri
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, Chi Eridani becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Chi Eridani at a glance
- Constellation
- Eridanus
- Other name
- χ Eri
- Catalogue number
- HIP 9007
- Distance
- ≈ 62 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.70 naked-eye
- Star type
- K0 IV
- Colour
- warm orange
- Best seen from
- The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 01h 55m 57s
- Declination
- −51° 36′ 33″
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 Chi Eridani?
Chi Eridani is an orange subgiant. Its surface runs roughly 4,000 to 5,000°C, cool enough that the light carries a visible orange. 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.
Nothing of this kind has ever died of old age, anywhere, because the universe is not old enough yet. Every one that has ever formed is still burning.
A star of this class gets twenty to fifty thousand million years, far longer than the universe has yet existed.
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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Chi Eridani left in 1964, which puts it roughly a lifetime ago. Nobody has invented anything since then that the light knows about; it has simply been travelling.
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.
Where can you see Chi Eridani?
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 38°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 52°S. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.70 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Chi Eridani belongs to Eridanus.
What does Chi Eridani mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Chi Eridani, 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, Chi Eridani stands at 26° Pisces at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 16 March 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 Chi Eridani
- What does Chi Eridani mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Chi Eridani. Projected onto the zodiac, Chi Eridani stands at 26° Pisces, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 16 March.
- Is Chi Eridani the brightest star?
- Chi Eridani shines at magnitude 3.70 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Chi Eridani?
- Chi Eridani is approximately 62 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 62 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Chi Eridani?
- Chi Eridani is part of Eridanus.
- Can everyone see Chi Eridani?
- 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 38°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 52°S. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.70 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Chi Eridani an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Chi Eridani 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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