The AsterNym star registry
Fumalsamakah
Fumalsamakah: the blue-white star of Pisces
blue-white · Pisces · β Psc
Fumalsamakah is a blue-white star, the colour of the hottest, youngest suns in the constellation Pisces, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 4.48 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Fumalsamakah 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
Fumalsamakah at a glance
- Constellation
- Pisces
- Other name
- β Psc
- Catalogue number
- HIP 113889
- Distance
- ≈ 408 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.48 naked-eye
- Star type
- B6Ve
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 23h 03m 53s
- Declination
- +03° 49′ 12″
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 Fumalsamakah?
Fumalsamakah is a blue-white main-sequence star. Its surface runs somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000°C, which is what gives it a blue-white cast. 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.
It is spending its fuel at a rate the Sun never will. Most of the bright stars in familiar constellations are this kind, which is why the night sky looks younger and hotter than the average star actually is.
A star of this class gets tens of millions of years, against the Sun's ten thousand million.
It is a main-sequence star, which despite the word dwarf simply means it is in the long stable middle of its life, fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun is doing now.
Fumalsamakah barely moves against the background sky, which is mostly a statement about how far away it is. For every practical purpose, including yours, it is fixed.
The light you are looking at is old
Fumalsamakah is about 408 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1618. 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 does the name Fumalsamakah mean?
It bore the traditional name Fum al Samakah from the Arabic فم السمكة fum al-samakah "mouth of the fish" (compare Fomalhaut).
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 Fumalsamakah dedication represent?
Fumalsamakah 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 Pisces in the sky.”
Where can you see Fumalsamakah?
It sits 4° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 86°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 4°N. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.48 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Fumalsamakah belongs to Pisces.
What does Fumalsamakah mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Fumalsamakah, 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, Fumalsamakah stands at 18° Pisces at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 9 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.
Dedicate Fumalsamakah 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 Fumalsamakah →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Fumalsamakah dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Fumalsamakah's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Fumalsamakah keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Fumalsamakah
- What does Fumalsamakah mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Fumalsamakah. Projected onto the zodiac, Fumalsamakah stands at 18° Pisces, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 9 March.
- Is Fumalsamakah the brightest star?
- Fumalsamakah shines at magnitude 4.48 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Fumalsamakah?
- Fumalsamakah is approximately 408 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 408 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Fumalsamakah?
- Fumalsamakah is part of Pisces.
- Can everyone see Fumalsamakah?
- It sits 4° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 86°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 4°N. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.48 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Fumalsamakah an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Fumalsamakah 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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