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A dedicated star
Thuban
blue-white · Draco · α Dra
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, Thuban becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Thuban at a glance
- Constellation
- Draco
- Other name
- α Dra
- Catalogue number
- HIP 68756
- Distance
- ≈ 303 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.65 naked-eye
- Star type
- A0 III
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- The far northern sky
- Right ascension
- 14h 04m 23s
- Declination
- +64° 22′ 33″
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 Thuban?
Thuban is a white giant. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. A white star still in the steady part of its life would burn for about a thousand million years. 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 Thuban tonight left in about 1723, some 303 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 Thuban mean?
The traditional name Thuban is derived from the Arabic word ثعبان ' large snake—e'.
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 Thuban?
It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 26°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 64°N. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.65 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Thuban belongs to Draco.
What does Thuban mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Thuban, 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, Thuban stands at 7° Virgo at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 27 August 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 Thuban
- What does Thuban mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Thuban. Projected onto the zodiac, Thuban stands at 7° Virgo, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 27 August.
- Is Thuban the brightest star?
- Thuban shines at magnitude 3.65 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Thuban?
- Thuban is approximately 303 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 303 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Thuban?
- Thuban is part of Draco.
- Can everyone see Thuban?
- It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 26°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 64°N. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.65 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Thuban an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Thuban 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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