The AsterNym star registry
Tejat
Tejat: the deep red star of Gemini
deep red · Gemini · μ Gem
Tejat is a deep red star in the constellation Gemini, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 2.88 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Tejat 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
Tejat at a glance
- Constellation
- Gemini
- Other name
- μ Gem
- Catalogue number
- HIP 30343
- Distance
- ≈ 230 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.88 naked-eye
- Star type
- M3 III
- Colour
- deep red
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 06h 22m 58s
- 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 Tejat?
Tejat 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 Tejat tonight left in about 1796, some 230 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 Tejat mean?
The names Calx Latin, meaning 'heel', Pish Pai from the Persian پیشپای 'pīshpāy', meaning 'foreleg', and Nuhatai from Arabic 'Al Nuḥātai', the dual form of 'Al Nuḥāt', 'a Camel's Hump' have also been applied to Mu Geminorum'.
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.
What could a Tejat dedication represent?
Tejat 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 Gemini in the sky.”
Where can you see Tejat?
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 2.88 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Tejat belongs to Gemini.
What does Tejat mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Tejat, 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, Tejat stands at 5° Cancer at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 25 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 Tejat 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 Tejat →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Tejat dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Tejat's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Tejat keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Tejat
- What does Tejat mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Tejat. Projected onto the zodiac, Tejat stands at 5° Cancer, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 25 June.
- Is Tejat the brightest star?
- Tejat shines at magnitude 2.88 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Tejat?
- Tejat is approximately 230 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 230 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Tejat?
- Tejat is part of Gemini.
- Can everyone see Tejat?
- 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 2.88 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Tejat an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Tejat 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
