Figures / Aelfaelen
Aelfaelen
“light-maker, the many”
ael “light” + fael “maker” + -en “the many”
Aelfaelen (“light-maker, the many”) is a 5-star constellation of The Other Sky, spanning 14° of the far southern sky. Its brightest star is Smidansath, magnitude -0.31.
The story
The Vailen hold that Aelfaelen was a drowned sailor who buried a key where no lock has yet been built, and was hung up where the debt could be seen. It is unknown in the northern registers; the songs that mention it were all collected south of the line. Smidansath, the white nail, is the knot; the remaining 4 stars are counted inward. Those who keep the old year sing to it badly, on purpose, so it does not grow proud.
Where to look
- Right ascension
- 22.63 h
- Declination
- -69.48°
- Angular span
- 14.3°
- Stars in the figure
- 5
- Best season
- summer (northern hemisphere)
- Circumpolar
- nowhere — it rises and sets at every inhabited latitude
Its stars
| Letter | Name | Mag | Type | Distance | Temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aiv | Smidansath“forge-knot, made of” | -0.31 | A5 I | 154 pc | 8,744 K |
| bhor | Vesebraune“burning-bridge, place of” | 3.20 | B4 I | 524 pc | 21,792 K |
| ciel | Sovrecorris“sovereign-crown, little” | 3.49 | K6 III | 120 pc | 4,267 K |
| dor | Sarris“ember, little” | 3.94 | B6 V | 118 pc | 16,642 K |
| enn | KS 1576 | 4.24 | A6 V | 28 pc | 8,240 K |
How this was made
Aelfaelen was not designed. It was grown outward from Smidansath, the brightest star in this part of the sky that had not already been claimed by another figure, absorbing near neighbours until it ran out of them — which is, near enough, how the constellations of the real sky came about. Its name is Ilmenic, an invented agglutinative language: every name on this site decomposes into morphemes and can be translated.