Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Merak
white · Ursa Major · β UMa
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, Merak becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Merak at a glance
- Constellation
- Ursa Major
- Other name
- β UMa
- Catalogue number
- HIP 53910
- Distance
- ≈ 79 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.37 naked-eye
- Star type
- A1 V
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 11h 01m 51s
- Declination
- +56° 22′ 57″
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 Merak?
Merak is a white main-sequence star. 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 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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Merak left in 1947, 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 comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
Where can you see Merak?
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 34°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 56°N. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.37 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Merak belongs to Ursa Major.
What does Merak mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Merak, 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, Merak stands at 19° Leo at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 8 August 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 Merak
- What does Merak mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Merak. Projected onto the zodiac, Merak stands at 19° Leo, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 8 August.
- Is Merak the brightest star?
- Merak shines at magnitude 2.37 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Merak?
- Merak is approximately 79 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 79 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Merak?
- Merak is part of Ursa Major.
- Can everyone see Merak?
- 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 34°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 56°N. It stands highest at midnight in March, so March and April evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.37 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Merak an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Merak 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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