The AsterNym star registry
Menkalinan
Menkalinan: the white star of Auriga
white · Auriga · β Aur
Menkalinan is a white star, burning hotter than our own Sun in the constellation Auriga, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 1.90 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Menkalinan 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
Menkalinan at a glance
- Constellation
- Auriga
- Other name
- β Aur
- Catalogue number
- HIP 28360
- Distance
- ≈ 82 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 1.90 naked-eye
- Star type
- A2 IV
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 05h 59m 32s
- Declination
- +44° 56′ 51″
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 Menkalinan?
Menkalinan is a white subgiant. Its surface runs around 7,500 to 10,000°C, hot enough to look white or blue-white to the eye. 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.
These are the classic bright white stars. Sirius and Vega are both this kind, and they are the reason people describe stars as white when most of the galaxy's stars are actually red and too faint to see.
A star of this class gets roughly a thousand million years, a tenth of what the Sun gets.
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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Menkalinan left in 1944, which puts it roughly a lifetime ago. Nobody has invented anything since then that the light knows about; it has simply been travelling.
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 also one of the brighter stars in the sky, which is why it carries a proper name at all rather than a catalogue number.
What does the name Menkalinan mean?
The traditional name Menkalinan is derived from the Arabic منكب ذي العنان mankib ðī-l-‘inān "shoulder of the rein-holder".
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 Menkalinan dedication represent?
Menkalinan 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 Auriga in the sky.”
Where can you see Menkalinan?
It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 45°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 45°N. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.90 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Menkalinan belongs to Auriga.
What does Menkalinan mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Menkalinan, 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, Menkalinan stands at 29° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 19 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.
Dedicate Menkalinan 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 Menkalinan →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Menkalinan dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Menkalinan's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Menkalinan keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Menkalinan
- What does Menkalinan mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Menkalinan. Projected onto the zodiac, Menkalinan stands at 29° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 19 June.
- Is Menkalinan the brightest star?
- Menkalinan shines at magnitude 1.90 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Menkalinan?
- Menkalinan is approximately 82 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 82 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Menkalinan?
- Menkalinan is part of Auriga.
- Can everyone see Menkalinan?
- It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 45°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 45°N. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.90 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Menkalinan an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Menkalinan 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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