Kaveh

Kaveh at a glance

Constellation

Serpens

Other name

HD 175541

Catalogue number

HIP 92895

Distance

≈ 414 light-years

Brightness

Magnitude 8.02 telescope

Star type

G8V

Colour

golden

Best seen from

Almost everywhere on Earth

Right ascension

18h 55m 41s

Declination

+04° 15′ 55″

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 Kaveh?

Kaveh 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.

Kaveh drifts about 9.0 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

Kaveh is about 414 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1612. 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 Kaveh?

It sits 4° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 86°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 4°N. It stands highest at midnight in July, so July and August evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.02 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.

Kaveh belongs to Serpens.

What does Kaveh mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Kaveh, 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, Kaveh stands at 15° Capricorn at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 4 January 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 Kaveh

What does Kaveh mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Kaveh. Projected onto the zodiac, Kaveh stands at 15° Capricorn, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 4 January.

Is Kaveh the brightest star?

Kaveh shines at magnitude 8.02 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.

How far away is Kaveh?

Kaveh is approximately 414 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 414 years ago.

Which constellation contains Kaveh?

Kaveh is part of Serpens.

Can everyone see Kaveh?

It sits 4° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 86°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 4°N. It stands highest at midnight in July, so July and August evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 8.02 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.

Is dedicating Kaveh an official astronomical renaming?

No. Kaveh 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

• Unukalhai in Serpens
• Zhou in Serpens
• Gudja in Serpens
• Alya in Serpens
• Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky