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A dedicated star
Inquill
golden · Ara · HD 156411
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, Inquill becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Inquill at a glance
- Constellation
- Ara
- Other name
- HD 156411
- Catalogue number
- HIP 84787
- Distance
- ≈ 179 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 6.67 telescope
- Star type
- G1Vw...
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 17h 19m 51s
- Declination
- −48° 32′ 58″
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 Inquill?
Inquill is a yellow main-sequence star. Its surface runs about 5,500°C, near enough the Sun's own surface temperature. 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.
This is the Sun's class. Looking at a star like this is the closest you get to seeing what our own star looks like from outside, which is a stranger thought than it first sounds.
A star of this class gets around ten thousand million years, and the Sun is halfway through its own.
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.
Inquill moves noticeably against the background sky, about 21 arcseconds a century. The constellation it belongs to will not have quite this shape in ten thousand years.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Inquill tonight left in about 1847, some 179 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 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 Inquill?
It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 41°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 49°S. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 6.67 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Inquill belongs to Ara.
What does Inquill mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Inquill, 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, Inquill stands at 22° Sagittarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 11 December 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 Inquill
- What does Inquill mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Inquill. Projected onto the zodiac, Inquill stands at 22° Sagittarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 11 December.
- Is Inquill the brightest star?
- Inquill shines at magnitude 6.67 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Inquill?
- Inquill is approximately 179 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 179 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Inquill?
- Inquill is part of Ara.
- Can everyone see Inquill?
- It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 41°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 49°S. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 6.67 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Inquill an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Inquill 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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