Homam, painted as a blue-white star

The AsterNym star registry

Homam

Homam: the blue-white star of Pegasus

blue-white · Pegasus · ζ Peg

Homam is a blue-white star, the colour of the hottest, youngest suns in the constellation Pegasus, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 3.41 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.

Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Homam 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

Homam at a glance

Constellation
Pegasus
Other name
ζ Peg
Catalogue number
HIP 112029
Distance
≈ 204 light-years
Brightness
Magnitude 3.41 naked-eye
Star type
B8.5V
Colour
blue-white
Best seen from
Almost everywhere on Earth
Right ascension
22h 41m 28s
Declination
+10° 49′ 53″

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 Homam?

Homam 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.

Homam drifts about 7.8 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 Homam tonight left in about 1822, some 204 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 could a Homam dedication represent?

Homam 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 Pegasus in the sky.”

Dedicate Homam →

Where can you see Homam?

It sits 11° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 79°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 11°N. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.41 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.

Homam belongs to Pegasus.

What does Homam mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Homam, 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, Homam stands at 16° Pisces at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 6 March 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 Homam 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 Homam →

Real star · your message · a page to share

Your Homam dedication includes

  • Your chosen dedication name
  • Your personal message
  • Homam's real astronomical coordinates
  • A shareable dedication page
  • Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
  • An optional printable certificate and gift presentation

Homam keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.

Frequently asked questions about Homam

What does Homam mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Homam. Projected onto the zodiac, Homam stands at 16° Pisces, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 6 March.
Is Homam the brightest star?
Homam shines at magnitude 3.41 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
How far away is Homam?
Homam is approximately 204 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 204 years ago.
Which constellation contains Homam?
Homam is part of Pegasus.
Can everyone see Homam?
It sits 11° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 79°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 11°N. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.41 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Is dedicating Homam an official astronomical renaming?
No. Homam 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 Pegasus, its stars sized by brightness and coloured by spectral type
Pegasus, 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.