Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Karaka
warm orange · Apus · HD 137388
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, Karaka becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Karaka at a glance
- Constellation
- Apus
- Other name
- HD 137388
- Catalogue number
- HIP 76351
- Distance
- ≈ 128 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 8.71 telescope
- Star type
- K0/K1V
- Colour
- warm orange
- Best seen from
- The far southern sky
- Right ascension
- 15h 35m 40s
- Declination
- −80° 12′ 17″
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 Karaka?
Karaka is an orange main-sequence 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.
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.
Karaka drifts about 6.5 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 Karaka tonight left in about 1898, some 128 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 Karaka?
It is a deep-southern star: easy from Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and South America, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 10°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 80°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.71 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Karaka belongs to Apus.
What does Karaka mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Karaka, 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, Karaka stands at 19° Sagittarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 8 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 Karaka
- What does Karaka mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Karaka. Projected onto the zodiac, Karaka stands at 19° Sagittarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 8 December.
- Is Karaka the brightest star?
- Karaka shines at magnitude 8.71 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Karaka?
- Karaka is approximately 128 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 128 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Karaka?
- Karaka is part of Apus.
- Can everyone see Karaka?
- It is a deep-southern star: easy from Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and South America, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 10°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 80°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.71 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Karaka an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Karaka 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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