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A dedicated star
Pherkad Minor
warm orange · Ursa Minor · 11 UMi
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, Pherkad Minor becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Pherkad Minor at a glance
- Constellation
- Ursa Minor
- Other name
- 11 UMi
- Catalogue number
- HIP 74793
- Distance
- ≈ 398 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 5.01 naked-eye
- Star type
- K4III
- Colour
- warm orange
- Best seen from
- The far northern sky
- Right ascension
- 15h 17m 06s
- Declination
- +71° 49′ 26″
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 Pherkad Minor?
Pherkad Minor is an orange giant. Its surface runs roughly 4,000 to 5,000°C, cool enough that the light carries a visible orange. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. An orange star still in the steady part of its life would burn for tens of thousands of millions of years. This one is past that stage, and it is cool at the surface because it has swollen outward, not because it was born this way.
It is a giant, which is what a star becomes when it exhausts the hydrogen in its core. It has swollen outward and cooled at the surface, and it is now brighter than it ever was as a young star. The Sun will do this too, in about five thousand million years.
Pherkad Minor 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 Pherkad Minor tonight left in about 1628, some 398 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 Pherkad Minor?
It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 18°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 72°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 5.01 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Pherkad Minor belongs to Ursa Minor.
What does Pherkad Minor mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Pherkad Minor, 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, Pherkad Minor stands at 21° Leo at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 11 August 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 Pherkad Minor
- What does Pherkad Minor mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Pherkad Minor. Projected onto the zodiac, Pherkad Minor stands at 21° Leo, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 11 August.
- Is Pherkad Minor the brightest star?
- Pherkad Minor shines at magnitude 5.01 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Pherkad Minor?
- Pherkad Minor is approximately 398 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 398 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Pherkad Minor?
- Pherkad Minor is part of Ursa Minor.
- Can everyone see Pherkad Minor?
- It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 18°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 72°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 5.01 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Pherkad Minor an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Pherkad Minor 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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