Hunahpú

Hunahpú at a glance

Constellation

Crater

Other name

HD 98219

Catalogue number

HIP 55174

Distance

≈ 438 light-years

Brightness

Magnitude 8.05 telescope

Star type

K0III/IV

Colour

warm orange

Best seen from

Almost everywhere on Earth

Right ascension

11h 17m 48s

Declination

−23° 58′ 32″

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 Hunahpú?

Hunahpú 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.

Hunahpú drifts about 13.2 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

Hunahpú is about 438 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1588. 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 Hunahpú?

It sits 24° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 66°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 24°S. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.05 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.

Hunahpú belongs to Crater.

What does Hunahpú mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Hunahpú, 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, Hunahpú stands at 0° Libra at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 19 September 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 Hunahpú

What does Hunahpú mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Hunahpú. Projected onto the zodiac, Hunahpú stands at 0° Libra, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 19 September.

Is Hunahpú the brightest star?

Hunahpú shines at magnitude 8.05 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.

How far away is Hunahpú?

Hunahpú is approximately 438 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 438 years ago.

Which constellation contains Hunahpú?

Hunahpú is part of Crater.

Can everyone see Hunahpú?

It sits 24° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 66°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 24°S. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.05 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.

Is dedicating Hunahpú an official astronomical renaming?

No. Hunahpú 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

• Alkes in Crater
• Amansinaya in Crater
• Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky