Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Irena
yellow-white · Hercules · WASP-38
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, Irena becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Irena at a glance
- Constellation
- Hercules
- Other name
- WASP-38
- Catalogue number
- WASP-38
- Distance
- ≈ 445 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 9.41 telescope
- Star type
- F8
- Colour
- yellow-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 16h 15m 50s
- Declination
- +10° 01′ 57″
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 Irena?
Irena is a yellow-white star. Its surface runs about 6,000 to 7,500°C, a shade hotter than the Sun. 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.
A little brighter and a little shorter-lived than the Sun, and near the edge of the range where a planet could plausibly hold liquid water for long enough to matter.
A star of this class gets two to four thousand million years.
The light you are looking at is old
Irena is about 445 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1581. 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 Irena?
It sits 10° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 80°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 10°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 9.41 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Irena belongs to Hercules.
What does Irena mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Irena, 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, Irena stands at 29° Scorpio at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 18 November 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 Irena
- What does Irena mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Irena. Projected onto the zodiac, Irena stands at 29° Scorpio, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 18 November.
- Is Irena the brightest star?
- Irena shines at magnitude 9.41 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Irena?
- Irena is approximately 445 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 445 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Irena?
- Irena is part of Hercules.
- Can everyone see Irena?
- It sits 10° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 80°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 10°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 9.41 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Irena an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Irena 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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