The AsterNym star registry
Felis
Felis: the warm orange star of Hydra
warm orange · Hydra · HR 3923
Felis is a warm orange giant, far along its stellar life in the constellation Hydra, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 4.94 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Felis 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
Felis at a glance
- Constellation
- Hydra
- Other name
- HR 3923
- Catalogue number
- HIP 48615
- Distance
- ≈ 614 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.94 naked-eye
- Star type
- K5III
- Colour
- warm orange
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 09h 54m 52s
- Declination
- −19° 00′ 34″
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 Felis?
Felis is an orange giant. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. An orange star still in the steady part of its life would burn for tens of thousands of millions of 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.
Felis drifts about 5.9 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
Felis is about 614 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1412. You are not looking at the star as it is. You are looking at the star as it was, and there is no way to see it any other way.
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 Felis dedication represent?
Felis 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 Hydra in the sky.”
Where can you see Felis?
It sits 19° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 71°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 19°S. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.94 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Felis belongs to Hydra.
What does Felis mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Felis, 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, Felis stands at 8° Virgo at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 28 August 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 Felis 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 Felis →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Felis dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Felis's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Felis keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Felis
- What does Felis mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Felis. Projected onto the zodiac, Felis stands at 8° Virgo, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 28 August.
- Is Felis the brightest star?
- Felis shines at magnitude 4.94 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Felis?
- Felis is approximately 614 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 614 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Felis?
- Felis is part of Hydra.
- Can everyone see Felis?
- It sits 19° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 71°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 19°S. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.94 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Felis an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Felis 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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