Figures / Faeleth
Faeleth
“maker, of the”
fael “maker” + -eth “of the”
Faeleth (“maker, of the”) is a 7-star constellation of The Other Sky, spanning 39° of the northern sky. Its brightest star is Risakela, magnitude 2.55.
The story
The Issen hold that Faeleth was a child who would not be named who walked north until north stopped meaning anything, and was made bright so that lying would be harder. It is a figure of the summer, and its setting is the older marker for the end of that season. Risakela, the cold lamp, is the heart; the remaining 6 stars are counted against the turn. Those who keep the old year say nothing at all, which is considered the correct observance.
Where to look
- Right ascension
- 23.18 h
- Declination
- +19.00°
- Angular span
- 38.7°
- Stars in the figure
- 7
- Best season
- summer (northern hemisphere)
- Circumpolar
- nowhere — it rises and sets at every inhabited latitude
Its stars
| Letter | Name | Mag | Type | Distance | Temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aiv | Risakela“morning-key, she who is” | 2.55 | B5 I | 239 pc | 19,858 K |
| bhor | Smidhalonien“forge-deep, belonging to” | 3.04 | B8 V | 43 pc | 13,009 K |
| ciel | Smid“forge” | 3.25 | B5 I | 437 pc | 19,139 K |
| dor | Korrath“root, made of” | 3.52 | K3 III | 52 pc | 4,726 K |
| enn | Anorphana“mother-orphan, she who is” | 3.57 | G6 III | 51 pc | 5,511 K |
| fael | Corrune“crown, place of” | 3.96 | K6 I | 312 pc | 4,151 K |
| gyre | KS 1656 | 4.33 | B9 I | 1.13 kpc | 10,895 K |
How this was made
Faeleth was not designed. It was grown outward from Risakela, 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.