The AsterNym star registry
Nikawiy
Nikawiy: the golden star of Boötes
golden · Boötes · HD 136418
Nikawiy 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 7.88 it is a binocular or telescope object.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Nikawiy 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
Nikawiy at a glance
- Constellation
- Boötes
- Other name
- HD 136418
- Catalogue number
- HIP 74961
- Distance
- ≈ 320 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 7.88 telescope
- Star type
- G5
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 15h 19m 06s
- Declination
- +41° 44′ 00″
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 Nikawiy?
Nikawiy is a yellow star. 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.
Nikawiy drifts about 18.3 arcseconds a century against the stars behind it. Slow by any human measure, and still enough that the sky your distant descendants see will not be the one in your photographs.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Nikawiy tonight left in about 1706, some 320 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 Nikawiy dedication represent?
Nikawiy 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 Nikawiy?
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 48°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 42°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.88 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Nikawiy belongs to Boötes.
What does Nikawiy mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Nikawiy, 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, Nikawiy stands at 28° Libra at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 17 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 Nikawiy 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 Nikawiy →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Nikawiy dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Nikawiy's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Nikawiy keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Nikawiy
- What does Nikawiy mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Nikawiy. Projected onto the zodiac, Nikawiy stands at 28° Libra, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 17 October.
- Is Nikawiy the brightest star?
- Nikawiy shines at magnitude 7.88 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Nikawiy?
- Nikawiy is approximately 320 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 320 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Nikawiy?
- Nikawiy is part of Boötes.
- Can everyone see Nikawiy?
- 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 48°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 42°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.88 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Nikawiy an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Nikawiy 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.
Explore nearby stars
