Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Tangra
golden · Pegasus · WASP-21
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, Tangra becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Tangra at a glance
- Constellation
- Pegasus
- Other name
- WASP-21
- Catalogue number
- WASP-21
- Distance
- ≈ 834 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 11.40 telescope
- Star type
- G3V
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 23h 09m 58s
- Declination
- +18° 23′ 46″
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 Tangra?
Tangra is a yellow main-sequence star. Its surface runs about 5,500°C, near enough the Sun's own surface temperature. 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.
This is the Sun's class. Looking at a star like this is the closest you get to seeing what our own star looks like from outside, which is a stranger thought than it first sounds.
A star of this class gets around ten thousand million years, and the Sun is halfway through its own.
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.
The light you are looking at is old
Tangra is about 834 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1192. You are not looking at the star as it is. You are looking at the star as it was, and there is no way to see it any other way.
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 Tangra?
It sits 18° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 72°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 18°N. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 11.40 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Tangra belongs to Pegasus.
What does Tangra mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Tangra, 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, Tangra stands at 26° Pisces at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 16 March 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 Tangra
- What does Tangra mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Tangra. Projected onto the zodiac, Tangra stands at 26° Pisces, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 16 March.
- Is Tangra the brightest star?
- Tangra shines at magnitude 11.40 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Tangra?
- Tangra is approximately 834 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 834 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Tangra?
- Tangra is part of Pegasus.
- Can everyone see Tangra?
- It sits 18° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 72°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 18°N. It stands highest at midnight in September, so September and October evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 11.40 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Tangra an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Tangra 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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