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A dedicated star
Meissa
blue-white · Orion · λ Ori
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, Meissa becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Meissa at a glance
- Constellation
- Orion
- Other name
- λ Ori
- Catalogue number
- HIP 26207
- Distance
- ≈ 1,098 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.39 naked-eye
- Star type
- O...
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 05h 35m 08s
- Declination
- +09° 56′ 03″
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 Meissa?
Meissa is a blue star. Its surface runs over 30,000°C at the surface, hot enough that it glows blue rather than white. 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.
Stars this massive burn through their fuel so fast that none of the ones you can see tonight existed when the first humans did. They end as supernovae, and the heavy elements they scatter are where most of the iron in your blood came from.
A star of this class gets a few million years, which in stellar terms is almost nothing.
Meissa barely moves against the background sky, which is mostly a statement about how far away it is. For every practical purpose, including yours, it is fixed.
The light you are looking at is old
Meissa is about 1,098 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 928. 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 is comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
What does the name Meissa mean?
The traditional name Meissa derives from the Arabic Al-Maisan which means 'The Shining One'.
The original Arabic name for this star, Al Hakah (the source for another name for it, Heka) refers to the Arabic lunar mansion that includes this star and the two of Phi Orionis (Al Haḳʽah, 'a White Spot').
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.
Where can you see Meissa?
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 December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.39 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Meissa belongs to Orion.
What does Meissa mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Meissa, 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, Meissa stands at 23° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 13 June 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 Meissa
- What does Meissa mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Meissa. Projected onto the zodiac, Meissa stands at 23° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 13 June.
- Is Meissa the brightest star?
- Meissa shines at magnitude 3.39 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Meissa?
- Meissa is approximately 1,098 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 1,098 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Meissa?
- Meissa is part of Orion.
- Can everyone see Meissa?
- 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 December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.39 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Meissa an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Meissa 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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