The AsterNym star registry
Shaowei
Shaowei: the white star of Camelopardalis
white · Camelopardalis · γ Cam
Shaowei is a white star, burning hotter than our own Sun in the constellation Camelopardalis, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 4.60 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Shaowei 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
Shaowei at a glance
- Constellation
- Camelopardalis
- Other name
- γ Cam
- Catalogue number
- HIP 17959
- Distance
- ≈ 359 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.60 naked-eye
- Star type
- A2IVn
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- The far northern sky
- Right ascension
- 03h 50m 22s
- Declination
- +71° 19′ 56″
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 Shaowei?
Shaowei is a white subgiant. Its surface runs around 7,500 to 10,000°C, hot enough to look white or blue-white to the eye. 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.
These are the classic bright white stars. Sirius and Vega are both this kind, and they are the reason people describe stars as white when most of the galaxy's stars are actually red and too faint to see.
A star of this class gets roughly a thousand million years, a tenth of what the Sun gets.
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.
Shaowei drifts about 4.6 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 Shaowei tonight left in about 1667, some 359 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 could a Shaowei dedication represent?
Shaowei 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 Camelopardalis in the sky.”
Where can you see Shaowei?
It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 19°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 71°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.60 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Shaowei belongs to Camelopardalis.
What does Shaowei mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Shaowei, 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, Shaowei stands at 14° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 4 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 Shaowei 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 Shaowei →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Shaowei dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Shaowei's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Shaowei keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Shaowei
- What does Shaowei mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Shaowei. Projected onto the zodiac, Shaowei stands at 14° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 4 June.
- Is Shaowei the brightest star?
- Shaowei shines at magnitude 4.60 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Shaowei?
- Shaowei is approximately 359 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 359 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Shaowei?
- Shaowei is part of Camelopardalis.
- Can everyone see Shaowei?
- It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 19°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 71°N. It stands highest at midnight in November, so November and December evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.60 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Shaowei an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Shaowei 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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