Our star - ING-042405

Recently, as part of our visit to the Stargazer Inn at Big Bear Lake, we got a free star-naming certificate.

The International Star Registry is the largest, worldwide organisation that operates a database of star "ownership". Anyone can get to name their own star and have a certificate to say so. Of course it is not really ownership. There are no legal rights and it isn't recognised by any scientific circles, but it is harmless fun. Anyway, since we had been given one, we took advantage of it.

Above is the beautifully framed certificate that we received. The package also comes with a star chart indicating the location of your star, which you can see in the photo below. The yellow line indicates the main body of ther constellation Lynx, in which our star lies. It also comes with a membership card to the organisation and a little booklet showing how to identify the constellations.

We named our star ING-042405. This is the date of our wedding. We also thought that it looked authentic, like the official catalog names that stars are given. We definitely didn't want a cutsie name, or to name it after our cats or something like that. Now, if they ever discover planets around our star, then perhaps we can name those planets after our cats.

Our star is high above the horizon making it visible all year round. We wonder if they pick your star based upon your location to ensure that you can view it. After all it would be disappointing to have a star that you had to travel to another country to see! Oh yes, you don't get to pick your star - they pick one for you. Thinking about our star (more details below), we suspect that they pick little-known stars on purpose, so as not to give a well-known star to anyone. After all, there are more than enough stars out there for everyone to have a few thousand each!

We tried to view our star one night, but it was too dim and much too hard to see with the naked eye. It might not even be visible with the naked eye, although again, we suspect that the Registry would choose stars that you can see. It is more than likely that the city lights are too bright. We intend to try again with a small telescope or binoculars.

According to our certificate. Our star is at 6h 45m 42s Right Ascension, and +53° 4' declination. I used Stellarium to find the real star at those coordinates. I couldn't find one, but I did find one very very close to it, so either the Registry's or Stellarium's star charts are not accurate - or both. This image from Stellarium shows the basic area of our star (the red circle) in the constellation of Lynx.

According to Stellarium, there is a star called HP 32358 at 6h 45m 50s R.A., and +53° 04' 41". As you can see it is very close to the coordinates of the certificate. HP 32358 is apparently 1264.19 light years away and Spectral Type K, making it orange and not so bright as the Sun.

The image below shows our star and the surrounding stars at the "butt" end of Lynx.

Please do not reproduce any content, text or images, without permission. Thank you. Email me!
Site hosted by pair.com using PHP 5.2.6 and MySQL. Developed on a Mac.