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A dedicated star
Propus
deep red · Gemini · η Gem
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, Propus becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Propus at a glance
- Constellation
- Gemini
- Other name
- η Gem
- Catalogue number
- HIP 29655
- Distance
- ≈ 350 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.31 naked-eye
- Star type
- M3 III
- Colour
- deep red
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 06h 14m 52s
- Declination
- +22° 30′ 49″
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 Propus?
Propus is a red giant. Its surface runs under 4,000°C, which is cool as stars go and why the colour is unmistakably red. 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. A red star still in the steady part of its life would burn for longer than the universe has yet existed. 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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Propus tonight left in about 1676, some 350 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 Propus mean?
The traditional names Tejat Prior, Propus (from the Greek, meaning forward foot) and Praepes and Pish Pai (from the Persian Pīshpāy, پیشپای, meaning foreleg).
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.
Where can you see Propus?
It sits 23° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 67°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 23°N. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.31 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Propus belongs to Gemini.
What does Propus mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Propus, 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, Propus stands at 3° Cancer at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 23 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.
Frequently asked questions about Propus
- What does Propus mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Propus. Projected onto the zodiac, Propus stands at 3° Cancer, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 23 June.
- Is Propus the brightest star?
- Propus shines at magnitude 3.31 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Propus?
- Propus is approximately 350 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 350 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Propus?
- Propus is part of Gemini.
- Can everyone see Propus?
- It sits 23° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 67°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 23°N. It stands highest at midnight in December, so December and January evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.31 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Propus an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Propus 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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