The AsterNym star registry
Dziban
Dziban: the yellow-white star of Draco
yellow-white · Draco · ψ1 Dra
Dziban is a yellow-white star, a near cousin of our own Sun's colour in the constellation Draco, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 4.57 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Dziban 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
Dziban at a glance
- Constellation
- Draco
- Other name
- ψ1 Dra
- Catalogue number
- HIP 86614
- Distance
- ≈ 74 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.57 naked-eye
- Star type
- F5IV-V
- Colour
- yellow-white
- Best seen from
- The far northern sky
- Right ascension
- 17h 41m 56s
- Declination
- +72° 08′ 56″
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 Dziban?
Dziban is a yellow-white subgiant. Its surface runs about 6,000 to 7,500°C, a shade hotter than the Sun. 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.
A little brighter and a little shorter-lived than the Sun, and near the edge of the range where a planet could plausibly hold liquid water for long enough to matter.
A star of this class gets two to four thousand million years.
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.
Dziban moves noticeably against the background sky, about 27 arcseconds a century. The constellation it belongs to will not have quite this shape in ten thousand years.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Dziban left in 1952, 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.
What does the name Dziban mean?
Psi1 Draconis bore the traditional name of Dziban or Dsiban, derived from the Arabic Adh-Dhi'ban, meaning "The two wolves" or "The two jackals"'.
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.
What could a Dziban dedication represent?
Dziban 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 Draco in the sky.”
Where can you see Dziban?
It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 18°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 72°N. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.57 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Dziban belongs to Draco.
What does Dziban mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Dziban, 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, Dziban stands at 13° Cancer at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 3 July 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 Dziban 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 Dziban →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Dziban dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Dziban's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Dziban keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Dziban
- What does Dziban mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Dziban. Projected onto the zodiac, Dziban stands at 13° Cancer, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 3 July.
- Is Dziban the brightest star?
- Dziban shines at magnitude 4.57 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Dziban?
- Dziban is approximately 74 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 74 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Dziban?
- Dziban is part of Draco.
- Can everyone see Dziban?
- It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 18°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 72°N. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.57 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Dziban an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Dziban 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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