Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Poerava
yellow-white · Tucana · HD 221287
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, Poerava becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Poerava at a glance
- Constellation
- Tucana
- Other name
- HD 221287
- Catalogue number
- HIP 116084
- Distance
- ≈ 180 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 7.82 telescope
- Star type
- F7V
- Colour
- yellow-white
- Best seen from
- The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 23h 31m 20s
- Declination
- −58° 12′ 35″
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 Poerava?
Poerava is a yellow-white main-sequence star. Its surface runs about 6,000 to 7,500°C, a shade hotter than the Sun. 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.
A little brighter and a little shorter-lived than the Sun, and near the edge of the range where a planet could plausibly hold liquid water for long enough to matter.
A star of this class gets two to four thousand million years.
It is a main-sequence star, which despite the word dwarf simply means it is in the long stable middle of its life, fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun is doing now.
Poerava drifts about 18.1 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 Poerava tonight left in about 1846, some 180 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 Poerava?
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 32°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 58°S. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.82 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Poerava belongs to Tucana.
What does Poerava mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Poerava, 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, Poerava stands at 22° Aquarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 10 February 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 Poerava
- What does Poerava mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Poerava. Projected onto the zodiac, Poerava stands at 22° Aquarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 10 February.
- Is Poerava the brightest star?
- Poerava shines at magnitude 7.82 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Poerava?
- Poerava is approximately 180 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 180 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Poerava?
- Poerava is part of Tucana.
- Can everyone see Poerava?
- 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 32°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 58°S. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.82 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Poerava an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Poerava 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
