The AsterNym star registry
Mira
Mira: the deep red star of Cetus
deep red · Cetus · ο Cet
Mira is a deep red star in the constellation Cetus, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 6.47 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Mira 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
Mira at a glance
- Constellation
- Cetus
- Other name
- ο Cet
- Catalogue number
- HIP 10826
- Distance
- ≈ 299 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 6.47 naked-eye
- Star type
- M5e-M9e
- Colour
- deep red
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 02h 19m 21s
- Declination
- −02° 58′ 40″
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 Mira?
Mira is a red star. Its surface runs under 4,000°C, which is cool as stars go and why the colour is unmistakably red. 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.
Most of the stars in the galaxy are this kind and almost none of them are visible to the eye. The red ones you can see are the exceptions: enormous, swollen and close to the end rather than small and long-lived.
A star of this class gets hundreds of thousands of millions of years for the small ones.
Mira moves noticeably against the background sky, about 24 arcseconds a century. The constellation it belongs to will not have quite this shape in ten thousand years.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Mira tonight left in about 1727, some 299 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 sits at the edge of what an unaided eye can do, so finding it is a deliberate act rather than an accident.
What could a Mira dedication represent?
Mira 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 Cetus in the sky.”
Where can you see Mira?
It sits 3° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 87°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 3°S. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 6.47 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Mira belongs to Cetus.
What does Mira mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Mira, 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, Mira stands at 1° Taurus at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 21 April 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 Mira 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 Mira →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Mira dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Mira's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Mira keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Mira
- What does Mira mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Mira. Projected onto the zodiac, Mira stands at 1° Taurus, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 21 April.
- Is Mira the brightest star?
- Mira shines at magnitude 6.47 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Mira?
- Mira is approximately 299 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 299 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Mira?
- Mira is part of Cetus.
- Can everyone see Mira?
- It sits 3° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 87°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 3°S. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 6.47 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Mira an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Mira 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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