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A dedicated star
Mothallah
yellow-white · Triangulum · α Tri
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, Mothallah becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Mothallah at a glance
- Constellation
- Triangulum
- Other name
- α Tri
- Catalogue number
- HIP 8796
- Distance
- ≈ 63 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.42 naked-eye
- Star type
- F6IV
- Colour
- yellow-white
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 01h 53m 05s
- Declination
- +29° 34′ 44″
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 Mothallah?
Mothallah is a yellow-white subgiant. Its surface runs about 6,000 to 7,500°C, a shade hotter than the Sun. 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.
A little brighter and a little shorter-lived than the Sun, and near the edge of the range where a planet could plausibly hold liquid water for long enough to matter.
A star of this class gets two to four thousand million years.
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.
Mothallah moves noticeably against the background sky, about 23 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 you can see from Mothallah left in 1963, 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.
What does the name Mothallah mean?
The system bore the traditional names Ras al Muthallah or Mothallah and Caput Trianguli derived from the Arabic رأس المثلث' raʼs al-muthallath "the head of the triangle" and its Latin translation.
In combination with Beta Trianguli, these stars were called Al Mīzān, which is Arabic for "The Scale Beam".
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 Mothallah?
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 60°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 30°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.42 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Mothallah belongs to Triangulum.
What does Mothallah mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Mothallah, 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, Mothallah stands at 6° Taurus at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 26 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.
Frequently asked questions about Mothallah
- What does Mothallah mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Mothallah. Projected onto the zodiac, Mothallah stands at 6° Taurus, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 26 April.
- Is Mothallah the brightest star?
- Mothallah shines at magnitude 3.42 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Mothallah?
- Mothallah is approximately 63 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 63 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Mothallah?
- Mothallah is part of Triangulum.
- Can everyone see Mothallah?
- 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 60°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 30°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.42 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Mothallah an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Mothallah 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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