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A dedicated star
Tianbang
blue-white · Hercules · ι Her
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, Tianbang becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Tianbang at a glance
- Constellation
- Hercules
- Other name
- ι Her
- Catalogue number
- HIP 86414
- Distance
- ≈ 455 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.80 naked-eye
- Star type
- B3V SB
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- The Northern Hemisphere and lower southern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 17h 39m 28s
- Declination
- +46° 00′ 23″
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 Tianbang?
Tianbang is a blue-white main-sequence star. Its surface runs somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000°C, which is what gives it a blue-white cast. 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.
It is spending its fuel at a rate the Sun never will. Most of the bright stars in familiar constellations are this kind, which is why the night sky looks younger and hotter than the average star actually is.
A star of this class gets tens of millions of years, against the Sun's ten thousand million.
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.
Tianbang barely moves against the background sky, which is mostly a statement about how far away it is. For every practical purpose, including yours, it is fixed.
The light you are looking at is old
Tianbang is about 455 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1571. 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 is comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
Where can you see Tianbang?
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 44°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 46°N. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.80 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Tianbang belongs to Hercules.
What does Tianbang mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Tianbang, 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, Tianbang stands at 19° Sagittarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 9 December 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 Tianbang
- What does Tianbang mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Tianbang. Projected onto the zodiac, Tianbang stands at 19° Sagittarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 9 December.
- Is Tianbang the brightest star?
- Tianbang shines at magnitude 3.80 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Tianbang?
- Tianbang is approximately 455 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 455 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Tianbang?
- Tianbang is part of Hercules.
- Can everyone see Tianbang?
- 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 44°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 46°N. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.80 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Tianbang an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Tianbang 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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