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A dedicated star
Stella Ludoviciana
white · Ursa Major · HD 116798
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, Stella Ludoviciana becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Stella Ludoviciana at a glance
- Constellation
- Ursa Major
- Other name
- HD 116798
- Catalogue number
- HD 116798
- Distance
- ≈ 297 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 7.58 telescope
- Star type
- A5
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 13h 24m 52s
- Declination
- +54° 53′ 51″
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 Stella Ludoviciana?
Stella Ludoviciana is a white star. 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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Stella Ludoviciana tonight left in about 1729, some 297 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 Stella Ludoviciana?
It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 35°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 55°N. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.58 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Stella Ludoviciana belongs to Ursa Major.
What does Stella Ludoviciana mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Stella Ludoviciana, 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, Stella Ludoviciana stands at 15° Virgo at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 4 September 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 Stella Ludoviciana
- What does Stella Ludoviciana mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Stella Ludoviciana. Projected onto the zodiac, Stella Ludoviciana stands at 15° Virgo, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 4 September.
- Is Stella Ludoviciana the brightest star?
- Stella Ludoviciana shines at magnitude 7.58 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Stella Ludoviciana?
- Stella Ludoviciana is approximately 297 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 297 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Stella Ludoviciana?
- Stella Ludoviciana is part of Ursa Major.
- Can everyone see Stella Ludoviciana?
- It is easy to see from most of the Northern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower southern latitudes, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 35°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 55°N. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.58 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Stella Ludoviciana an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Stella Ludoviciana 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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