Lionrock

Lionrock at a glance

Constellation

Aquarius

Other name

HD 212771

Catalogue number

HIP 110813

Distance

≈ 427 light-years

Brightness

Magnitude 7.60 telescope

Star type

G8IV

Colour

golden

Best seen from

Almost everywhere on Earth

Right ascension

22h 27m 03s

Declination

−17° 15′ 49″

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 Lionrock?

Lionrock is a yellow subgiant. 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 subgiant, caught in the short crossing between an ordinary life and a giant one. Its core has run out of hydrogen but its outer layers have not finished expanding, and astronomically this stage passes quickly.

Lionrock drifts about 13.6 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

Lionrock is about 427 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1599. 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 Lionrock?

It sits 17° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 73°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 17°S. It stands highest at midnight in August, so August and September evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.60 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.

Lionrock belongs to Aquarius.

What does Lionrock mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Lionrock, 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, Lionrock stands at 2° Pisces at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 20 February 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 Lionrock

What does Lionrock mean in astrology?

The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Lionrock. Projected onto the zodiac, Lionrock stands at 2° Pisces, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 20 February.

Is Lionrock the brightest star?

Lionrock shines at magnitude 7.60 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.

How far away is Lionrock?

Lionrock is approximately 427 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 427 years ago.

Which constellation contains Lionrock?

Lionrock is part of Aquarius.

Can everyone see Lionrock?

It sits 17° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 73°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 17°S. It stands highest at midnight in August, so August and September evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.60 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.

Is dedicating Lionrock an official astronomical renaming?

No. Lionrock 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

• Sadalsuud in Aquarius
• Sadalmelik in Aquarius
• Skat in Aquarius
• Safina in Aquarius
• Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky