The AsterNym star registry
Haedus
Haedus: the blue-white star of Auriga
blue-white · Auriga · η Aur
Haedus is a blue-white star, the colour of the hottest, youngest suns in the constellation Auriga, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 3.18 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Haedus 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
Haedus at a glance
- Constellation
- Auriga
- Other name
- η Aur
- Catalogue number
- HIP 23767
- Distance
- ≈ 243 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.18 naked-eye
- Star type
- B3V
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 05h 06m 31s
- Declination
- +41° 14′ 04″
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 Haedus?
Haedus 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.
Haedus drifts about 7.5 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
The light arriving from Haedus tonight left in about 1783, some 243 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 Haedus mean?
Along with Zeta Aurigae it represents one of the kids of the she-goat Capella, from which it derived its Latin traditional name Haedus II or Hoedus II, from the Latin haedus "kid" (Zeta Aurigae was Haedus I).
It also had the less common traditional name Mahasim, from the Arabic المِعْصَم al-miʽşam "the wrist" (of the charioteer), which it shared with Theta Aurigae.
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 Haedus dedication represent?
Haedus 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 Auriga in the sky.”
Where can you see Haedus?
It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 49°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 41°N. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.18 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Haedus belongs to Auriga.
What does Haedus mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Haedus, 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, Haedus stands at 19° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 9 June 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 Haedus 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 Haedus →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Haedus dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Haedus's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Haedus keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Haedus
- What does Haedus mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Haedus. Projected onto the zodiac, Haedus stands at 19° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 9 June.
- Is Haedus the brightest star?
- Haedus shines at magnitude 3.18 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Haedus?
- Haedus is approximately 243 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 243 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Haedus?
- Haedus is part of Auriga.
- Can everyone see Haedus?
- It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 49°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 41°N. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.18 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Haedus an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Haedus 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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