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Guniibuu, painted as a warm orange star

A dedicated star

Guniibuu

warm orange · Ophiuchus · HR 6402

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.”
AsterNym registry seal

This dedication

Dedicated to
Maya
Dedicated by
Her sister, June
Recorded
August 12, 2026
Held until
August 12, 2027

When this dedication ends, Guniibuu becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.

Guniibuu at a glance

Constellation
Ophiuchus
Other name
HR 6402
Catalogue number
HIP 84405
Distance
≈ 19.0 light-years
Brightness
Magnitude 5.07 naked-eye
Star type
K2:III:
Colour
warm orange
Best seen from
The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
Right ascension
17h 15m 21s
Declination
−26° 35′ 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 Guniibuu?

Guniibuu 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.

Guniibuu is one of the fastest-moving stars in the sky. It shifts about 124 arcseconds every century, which sounds tiny and is not: over a human lifetime it visibly changes position against the stars behind it. The constellations are not fixed, they are just slow, and this one is in a hurry.

The light you are looking at is old

Light travels fast but not instantly, so what reaches your eye from Guniibuu tonight set out in 2007. That is inside a single lifetime. Someone alive now was already alive when this particular light left.

Distance is also the honest limit of what a star can be to you. It is a real object, unimaginably large, and it does not know you exist. What it can be is a fixed point you agreed to attach a meaning to, which is the oldest use people have ever had for the sky.

It sits at the edge of what an unaided eye can do, so finding it is a deliberate act rather than an accident.

Where can you see Guniibuu?

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 63°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 27°S. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 5.07 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.

Guniibuu belongs to Ophiuchus.

What does Guniibuu mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Guniibuu, 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, Guniibuu stands at 20° Sagittarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 9 December 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 Guniibuu

What does Guniibuu mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Guniibuu. Projected onto the zodiac, Guniibuu stands at 20° Sagittarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 9 December.
Is Guniibuu the brightest star?
Guniibuu shines at magnitude 5.07 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
How far away is Guniibuu?
Guniibuu is approximately 19.0 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 19 years ago.
Which constellation contains Guniibuu?
Guniibuu is part of Ophiuchus.
Can everyone see Guniibuu?
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 63°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 27°S. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 5.07 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Is dedicating Guniibuu an official astronomical renaming?
No. Guniibuu 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.

Explore nearby stars

The constellation Ophiuchus, its stars sized by brightness and coloured by spectral type
Ophiuchus, drawn from catalogued positions: brighter stars are larger, and the colours follow spectral type. North is up and east is left, the sky-chart convention, so it is mirrored against a map of the ground. The joining lines are one drawing convention among several; the IAU fixes the boundaries, not the figure.
AsterNym dedications are personal commemorative records: they are not recognized by the International Astronomical Union, do not change scientific catalogue names, and do not confer ownership of a star.