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A dedicated star
Nikawiy
golden · Boötes · HD 136418
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, Nikawiy becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
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.
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.
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.
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