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A dedicated star
Zubeneschamali
blue-white · Libra · β Lib
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, Zubeneschamali becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Zubeneschamali at a glance
- Constellation
- Libra
- Other name
- β Lib
- Catalogue number
- HIP 74785
- Distance
- ≈ 185 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.61 naked-eye
- Star type
- B8 V
- Colour
- blue-white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 15h 17m 00s
- Declination
- −09° 22′ 58″
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 Zubeneschamali?
Zubeneschamali 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.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Zubeneschamali tonight left in about 1841, some 185 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 Zubeneschamali mean?
It bore the traditional name Zubeneschamali (less common renderings, or corruptions, are Zuben Eschamali, Zuben el Chamali, Zubenesch, Zubenelg), derived from the Arabic الزُّبَانَى الشَمَالِي (al-zubānā al-šamāliyy) meaning "the northern claw".
There was also Kiffa Borealis, from the Arabic al-kiffah aš-šamāliyy "the northern pan (of the scales)" and the Latin equivalent Lanx Borealis.
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 Zubeneschamali?
It sits 9° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 81°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 9°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.61 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Zubeneschamali belongs to Libra, where it is the brightest star.
What does Zubeneschamali mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Zubeneschamali, 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, Zubeneschamali stands at 19° Scorpio at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 8 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 Zubeneschamali
- What does Zubeneschamali mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Zubeneschamali. Projected onto the zodiac, Zubeneschamali stands at 19° Scorpio, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 8 November.
- Is Zubeneschamali the brightest star?
- Zubeneschamali shines at magnitude 2.61 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Zubeneschamali?
- Zubeneschamali is approximately 185 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 185 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Zubeneschamali?
- Zubeneschamali is the brightest star in Libra.
- Can everyone see Zubeneschamali?
- It sits 9° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 81°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 9°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.61 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Zubeneschamali an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Zubeneschamali 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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