The AsterNym star registry
Yed Posterior
Yed Posterior: the golden star of Ophiuchus
golden · Ophiuchus · ε Oph
Yed Posterior is a golden star, warmer-toned than our Sun in the constellation Ophiuchus, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 3.23 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Yed Posterior 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
Yed Posterior at a glance
- Constellation
- Ophiuchus
- Other name
- ε Oph
- Catalogue number
- HIP 79882
- Distance
- ≈ 106 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.23 naked-eye
- Star type
- G8III
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 16h 18m 19s
- Declination
- −04° 41′ 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 Yed Posterior?
Yed Posterior is a yellow giant. 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.
Its colour is not the whole story. A yellow star still in the steady part of its life would burn for about ten 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.
Yed Posterior drifts about 9.2 arcseconds a century against the stars behind it. Slow by any human measure, and still enough that the sky your distant descendants see will not be the one in your photographs.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Yed Posterior left in 1920, 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 Yed Posterior mean?
Yed derives from the Arabic يد yad meaning "hand".
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 Yed Posterior dedication represent?
Yed Posterior 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 Ophiuchus in the sky.”
Where can you see Yed Posterior?
It sits 5° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 85°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 5°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.23 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Yed Posterior belongs to Ophiuchus.
What does Yed Posterior mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Yed Posterior, 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, Yed Posterior stands at 3° Sagittarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 22 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.
Dedicate Yed Posterior 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 Yed Posterior →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Yed Posterior dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Yed Posterior's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Yed Posterior keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Yed Posterior
- What does Yed Posterior mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Yed Posterior. Projected onto the zodiac, Yed Posterior stands at 3° Sagittarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 22 November.
- Is Yed Posterior the brightest star?
- Yed Posterior shines at magnitude 3.23 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Yed Posterior?
- Yed Posterior is approximately 106 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 106 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Yed Posterior?
- Yed Posterior is part of Ophiuchus.
- Can everyone see Yed Posterior?
- It sits 5° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 85°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 5°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 3.23 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Yed Posterior an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Yed Posterior 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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