The AsterNym star registry
Muphrid
Muphrid: the golden star of Boötes
golden · Boötes · η Boo
Muphrid is a golden star, warmer-toned than our Sun in the constellation Boötes, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 2.68 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Muphrid 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
Muphrid at a glance
- Constellation
- Boötes
- Other name
- η Boo
- Catalogue number
- HIP 67927
- Distance
- ≈ 37 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.68 naked-eye
- Star type
- G0IV
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 13h 54m 41s
- Declination
- +18° 23′ 52″
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 Muphrid?
Muphrid is a yellow subgiant. Its surface runs about 5,500°C, near enough the Sun's own surface temperature. 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.
This is the Sun's class. Looking at a star like this is the closest you get to seeing what our own star looks like from outside, which is a stranger thought than it first sounds.
A star of this class gets around ten thousand million years, and the Sun is halfway through its own.
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.
Muphrid moves noticeably against the background sky, about 36 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 Muphrid left in 1989, 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 Muphrid mean?
Muphrid is from the Arabic مفرد الرامح mufrid ar-rāmiħ "the (single) one of the lancer".
In the catalogue of stars in the Calendarium of Al Achsasi al Mouakket, this star was designated Ramih al Ramih (رمح الرامح rumḥ al rāmiḥ), which was translated into Latin as Lancea Lanceator, possibly meaning the lance of the lancer.
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 Muphrid dedication represent?
Muphrid 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 Boötes in the sky.”
Where can you see Muphrid?
It sits 18° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 72°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 18°N. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.68 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Muphrid belongs to Boötes.
What does Muphrid mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Muphrid, 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, Muphrid stands at 19° Libra at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 8 October 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 Muphrid 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 Muphrid →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Muphrid dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Muphrid's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Muphrid keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Muphrid
- What does Muphrid mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Muphrid. Projected onto the zodiac, Muphrid stands at 19° Libra, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 8 October.
- Is Muphrid the brightest star?
- Muphrid shines at magnitude 2.68 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Muphrid?
- Muphrid is approximately 37 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 37 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Muphrid?
- Muphrid is part of Boötes.
- Can everyone see Muphrid?
- It sits 18° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 72°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 18°N. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.68 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Muphrid an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Muphrid 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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