The AsterNym star registry
Phact
Phact: the blue-white star of Columba
blue-white · Columba · α Col
Phact is a blue-white star, the colour of the hottest, youngest suns in the constellation Columba, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 2.65 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Phact 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
Phact at a glance
- Constellation
- Columba
- Other name
- α Col
- Catalogue number
- HIP 26634
- Distance
- ≈ 261 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.65 naked-eye
- Star type
- B7IV
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 05h 39m 39s
- Declination
- −34° 04′ 27″
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 Phact?
Phact is a blue-white subgiant. 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.
It is spending its fuel at a rate the Sun never will. Most of the bright stars in familiar constellations are this kind, which is why the night sky looks younger and hotter than the average star actually is.
A star of this class gets tens of millions of years, against the Sun's ten thousand million.
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.
Phact barely moves against the background sky, which is mostly a statement about how far away it is. For every practical purpose, including yours, it is fixed.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Phact tonight left in about 1765, some 261 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 is comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
What does the name Phact mean?
The traditional name of Phact (also rendered Phad, Phaet, Phakt) derives from the Arabic فاختة fākhitah 'ring dove'.
From this Chinese name, the name Chang Jin has appeared.
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 Phact dedication represent?
Phact 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 Columba in the sky.”
Where can you see Phact?
It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 56°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 34°S. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.65 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Phact belongs to Columba, where it is the brightest star.
What does Phact mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Phact, 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, Phact stands at 22° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 11 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.
Dedicate Phact 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 Phact →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Phact dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Phact's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Phact keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Phact
- What does Phact mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Phact. Projected onto the zodiac, Phact stands at 22° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 11 June.
- Is Phact the brightest star?
- Phact shines at magnitude 2.65 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Phact?
- Phact is approximately 261 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 261 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Phact?
- Phact is the brightest star in Columba.
- Can everyone see Phact?
- It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 56°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 34°S. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.65 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Phact an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Phact 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
