Preview. This is a sample dedication, shown so you can see what a dedicated star page looks like.
A dedicated star
Unukalhai
warm orange · Serpens · α Ser
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, Unukalhai becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Unukalhai at a glance
- Constellation
- Serpens
- Other name
- α Ser
- Catalogue number
- HIP 77070
- Distance
- ≈ 74 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.63 naked-eye
- Star type
- K2 III
- Colour
- warm orange
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 15h 44m 18s
- Declination
- +06° 25′ 32″
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 Unukalhai?
Unukalhai is an orange giant. Its surface runs roughly 4,000 to 5,000°C, cool enough that the light carries a visible orange. 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. An orange star still in the steady part of its life would burn for tens of thousands of millions of 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 you can see from Unukalhai left in 1952, which puts it roughly a lifetime ago. Nobody has invented anything since then that the light knows about; it has simply been travelling.
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 Unukalhai mean?
It bore the traditional names Unukalhai (alternatively spelt Unuk al Hay or Unuk Elhaija) from the Arabic عنق الحيّة ʽunuq al-ḥayyah "the serpent's neck", and Cor Serpentis from the Latin "the Heart of the Serpent".
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 Unukalhai?
It sits 6° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 84°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 6°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.63 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Unukalhai belongs to Serpens, where it is the brightest star.
What does Unukalhai mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Unukalhai, 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, Unukalhai stands at 22° Scorpio at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 10 November 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 Unukalhai
- What does Unukalhai mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Unukalhai. Projected onto the zodiac, Unukalhai stands at 22° Scorpio, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 10 November.
- Is Unukalhai the brightest star?
- Unukalhai shines at magnitude 2.63 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Unukalhai?
- Unukalhai is approximately 74 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 74 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Unukalhai?
- Unukalhai is the brightest star in Serpens.
- Can everyone see Unukalhai?
- It sits 6° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 84°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 6°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.63 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Unukalhai an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Unukalhai 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
