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A dedicated star
Hoggar
warm orange · Taurus · HD 28678
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, Hoggar becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Hoggar at a glance
- Constellation
- Taurus
- Other name
- HD 28678
- Catalogue number
- HIP 21109
- Distance
- ≈ 740 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 8.38 telescope
- Star type
- K0
- Colour
- warm orange
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 04h 31m 25s
- Declination
- +04° 34′ 31″
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 Hoggar?
Hoggar is an orange star. 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.
Nothing of this kind has ever died of old age, anywhere, because the universe is not old enough yet. Every one that has ever formed is still burning.
A star of this class gets twenty to fifty thousand million years, far longer than the universe has yet existed.
Hoggar 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
Hoggar is about 740 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1286. 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 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 Hoggar?
It sits 5° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 85°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 5°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.38 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Hoggar belongs to Taurus.
What does Hoggar mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Hoggar, 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, Hoggar stands at 6° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 27 May 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 Hoggar
- What does Hoggar mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Hoggar. Projected onto the zodiac, Hoggar stands at 6° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 27 May.
- Is Hoggar the brightest star?
- Hoggar shines at magnitude 8.38 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Hoggar?
- Hoggar is approximately 740 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 740 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Hoggar?
- Hoggar is part of Taurus.
- Can everyone see Hoggar?
- It sits 5° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 85°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 5°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.38 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Hoggar an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Hoggar 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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