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A dedicated star
Mirzam
blue · Canis Major · β CMa
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, Mirzam becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Mirzam at a glance
- Constellation
- Canis Major
- Other name
- β CMa
- Catalogue number
- HIP 30324
- Distance
- ≈ 500 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 1.98 naked-eye
- Star type
- B1 II-III
- Colour
- blue
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 06h 22m 42s
- Declination
- −17° 57′ 21″
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 Mirzam?
Mirzam is a blue-white giant. Its surface runs somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000°C, which is what gives it a blue-white cast. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. A blue-white star still in the steady part of its life would burn for tens of millions of years. This one is past that stage, and it is cool at the surface because it has swollen outward, not because it was born this way.
It is a giant, which is what a star becomes when it exhausts the hydrogen in its core. It has swollen outward and cooled at the surface, and it is now brighter than it ever was as a young star. The Sun will do this too, in about five thousand million years.
The light you are looking at is old
Mirzam is about 500 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1526. 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 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 Mirzam mean?
The traditional names Mirzam, Al-Murzim or Murzim, derive from the Arabic (مرزم) for "The Announcer" or "The Herald", and probably refer to its position, because it rises before Sirius in the night sky.
From this Chinese name arose the name Kuen She.
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 Mirzam?
It sits 18° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 72°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 18°S. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.98 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Mirzam belongs to Canis Major.
What does Mirzam mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Mirzam, 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, Mirzam stands at 7° Cancer at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 27 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 Mirzam
- What does Mirzam mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Mirzam. Projected onto the zodiac, Mirzam stands at 7° Cancer, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 27 June.
- Is Mirzam the brightest star?
- Mirzam shines at magnitude 1.98 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Mirzam?
- Mirzam is approximately 500 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 500 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Mirzam?
- Mirzam is part of Canis Major.
- Can everyone see Mirzam?
- It sits 18° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 72°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 18°S. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.98 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Mirzam an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Mirzam 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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