Figures / Risa
Risa
“morning”
risa “morning”
Risa (“morning”) is a 12-star constellation of The Other Sky, spanning 35° of the northern sky. Its brightest star is Athath, magnitude 1.90.
The story
The Fughen hold that Risa was a lampwright who taught the tide a word it still repeats, and was given to the sky in place of payment. It is a figure of the spring, and its setting is the older marker for the end of that season. Athath, the pale coin, is the hand; the remaining 11 stars are counted inward. Those who keep the old year still leave a cup out when it rises.
Where to look
- Right ascension
- 14.16 h
- Declination
- +18.19°
- Angular span
- 35.5°
- Stars in the figure
- 12
- Best season
- spring (northern hemisphere)
- Circumpolar
- nowhere — it rises and sets at every inhabited latitude
Its stars
| Letter | Name | Mag | Type | Distance | Temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aiv | Athath“father, made of” | 1.90 | F1 V | 8 pc | 7,375 K |
| bhor | Frenorbiseth“friend-circling, of the” | 2.38 | F3 II | 17 pc | 6,971 K |
| ciel | Braeath“bridge, made of” | 2.81 | B7 I | 265 pc | 14,158 K |
| dor | Aelvanear“light-wing, one who” | 3.30 | B5 IV | 134 pc | 18,034 K |
| enn | Risansa“morning-knot, she who is” | 3.62 | F1 III | 100 pc | 7,266 K |
| fael | Duneth“hill, of the” | 3.77 | K9 III | 254 pc | 3,783 K |
| gyre | Drossael“tide-light” | 4.04 | A5 V | 28 pc | 8,485 K |
| hesp | Vasheloomien“wave-loom, belonging to” | 4.07 | A6 V | 26 pc | 8,448 K |
| ir | KS 1535 | 4.17 | G5 II | 128 pc | 5,542 K |
| joth | KS 1561 | 4.21 | F3 III | 41 pc | 7,081 K |
| kai | KS 1578 | 4.24 | M0 III | 255 pc | 3,682 K |
| lune | KS 1631 | 4.30 | B6 V | 160 pc | 15,933 K |
How this was made
Risa was not designed. It was grown outward from Athath, 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.