Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Hatysa
blue-white · Orion · ι Ori
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.”
This dedication
- Dedicated to
- Maya
- Dedicated by
- Her sister, June
- Recorded
- August 12, 2026
- Held until
- August 12, 2027
When this dedication ends, Hatysa becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Hatysa at a glance
- Constellation
- Orion
- Other name
- ι Ori
- Catalogue number
- HIP 26241
- Distance
- ≈ 2,330 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.80 naked-eye
- Star type
- O9III
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 05h 35m 26s
- Declination
- −05° 54′ 36″
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 Hatysa?
Hatysa is a blue giant. Its surface runs over 30,000°C at the surface, hot enough that it glows blue rather than white. 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. A blue star still in the steady part of its life would burn for a few million 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.
Hatysa 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
Hatysa is about 2,330 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around -304. 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 Hatysa mean?
The system has the traditional name Nair al Saif, from the Arabic نير السيف nayyir as-sayf "the Bright One of the Sword", though this is little used.
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.
Where can you see Hatysa?
It sits 6° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 84°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 6°S. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.80 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Hatysa belongs to Orion.
What does Hatysa mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Hatysa, 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, Hatysa stands at 22° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 12 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.
Frequently asked questions about Hatysa
- What does Hatysa mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Hatysa. Projected onto the zodiac, Hatysa stands at 22° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 12 June.
- Is Hatysa the brightest star?
- Hatysa shines at magnitude 2.80 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Hatysa?
- Hatysa is approximately 2,330 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 2,330 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Hatysa?
- Hatysa is part of Orion.
- Can everyone see Hatysa?
- It sits 6° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 84°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 6°S. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.80 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Hatysa an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Hatysa 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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