The AsterNym star registry
Kornephoros
Kornephoros: the yellow star of Hercules
yellow · Hercules · β Her
Kornephoros is a yellow star in the constellation Hercules, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 2.77 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Kornephoros is not. Some IAU-recognised names are ancient; others were adopted by the IAU only recently. Either way, the star already has a scientific identity, and a dedication attaches a human story to it.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
See what a dedicated page looks like: preview
Kornephoros at a glance
- Constellation
- Hercules
- Other name
- β Her
- Catalogue number
- HIP 80816
- Distance
- ≈ 148 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.77 naked-eye
- Star type
- G7 III
- Colour
- yellow
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 16h 30m 12s
- Declination
- +21° 29′ 23″
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 Kornephoros?
Kornephoros is a yellow giant. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. A yellow star still in the steady part of its life would burn for about ten thousand million 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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Kornephoros tonight left in about 1878, some 148 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 is comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
What does the name Kornephoros mean?
It bore the traditional names Kornephoros, a Greek word meaning "club bearer", and Rutilicus, a corruption of the Latin word titillicus, meaning "armpit".
Name origin from English Wikipedia. AsterNym does not invent an etymology where none is recorded, and most stars in this catalogue have none: they carry modern names, or a catalogue designation and nothing older.
What could a Kornephoros dedication represent?
Kornephoros is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Deserves something older than any gift shop
- · Marks a beginning, an anniversary or a promise
- · Is remembered every time you look up
- · Has a light you want recorded somewhere permanent
Dedication idea
“For the one I think of when I find Hercules in the sky.”
Where can you see Kornephoros?
It sits 21° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 69°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 21°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.77 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Kornephoros belongs to Hercules, where it is the brightest star.
What does Kornephoros mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Kornephoros, 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, Kornephoros stands at 1° Sagittarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 20 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.
Dedicate Kornephoros to someone who matters
A flower fades. A card is eventually put away. A star gives your message a place in the sky.
from$29.95a year
Dedicate Kornephoros →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Kornephoros dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Kornephoros's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Kornephoros keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Kornephoros
- What does Kornephoros mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Kornephoros. Projected onto the zodiac, Kornephoros stands at 1° Sagittarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 20 November.
- Is Kornephoros the brightest star?
- Kornephoros shines at magnitude 2.77 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Kornephoros?
- Kornephoros is approximately 148 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 148 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Kornephoros?
- Kornephoros is the brightest star in Hercules.
- Can everyone see Kornephoros?
- It sits 21° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 69°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 21°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.77 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Kornephoros an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Kornephoros 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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