The AsterNym star registry
Gomeisa
Gomeisa: the blue-white star of Canis Minor
blue-white · Canis Minor · β CMi
Gomeisa is a blue-white star, the colour of the hottest, youngest suns in the constellation Canis Minor, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 2.89 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Gomeisa 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
Gomeisa at a glance
- Constellation
- Canis Minor
- Other name
- β CMi
- Catalogue number
- HIP 36188
- Distance
- ≈ 162 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.89 naked-eye
- Star type
- B8 Ve
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 07h 27m 09s
- Declination
- +08° 17′ 21″
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 Gomeisa?
Gomeisa 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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Gomeisa tonight left in about 1864, some 162 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 does the name Gomeisa mean?
The traditional name Gomeisa comes from the Arabic al-ghumaisa' ("the bleary-eyed (woman)"), short for مرزم الغميصاء mirzam al-ghumaisa' ("girdle of the bleary-eyed one").
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 Gomeisa dedication represent?
Gomeisa 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 Canis Minor in the sky.”
Where can you see Gomeisa?
It sits 8° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 82°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 8°N. It stands highest at midnight in January, so January and February evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.89 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Gomeisa belongs to Canis Minor.
What does Gomeisa mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Gomeisa, 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, Gomeisa stands at 22° Cancer at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 12 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 Gomeisa 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 Gomeisa →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Gomeisa dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Gomeisa's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Gomeisa keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Gomeisa
- What does Gomeisa mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Gomeisa. Projected onto the zodiac, Gomeisa stands at 22° Cancer, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 12 July.
- Is Gomeisa the brightest star?
- Gomeisa shines at magnitude 2.89 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Gomeisa?
- Gomeisa is approximately 162 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 162 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Gomeisa?
- Gomeisa is part of Canis Minor.
- Can everyone see Gomeisa?
- It sits 8° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 82°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 8°N. It stands highest at midnight in January, so January and February evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.89 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Gomeisa an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Gomeisa 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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