Figures / Vailanol
Vailanol
“veil-mother, great”
vail “veil” + ana “mother” + -ol “great”
Vailanol (“veil-mother, great”) is a 8-star constellation of The Other Sky, spanning 22° of the northern sky. Its brightest star is Braen, magnitude 2.04.
The story
The Agraen hold that Vailanol was a tax-collector who stole the hour before dawn and could not give it back, and was hung up where the debt could be seen. North of 48° it never sets, which is taken as evidence that the sentence has not ended. Braen, the red ember, is the lamp; the remaining 7 stars are counted against the turn. Those who keep the old year name no child in the weeks it is hidden.
Where to look
- Right ascension
- 22.23 h
- Declination
- +41.96°
- Angular span
- 21.6°
- Stars in the figure
- 8
- Best season
- summer (northern hemisphere)
- Circumpolar
- north of 48° latitude, where it never sets
Its stars
| Letter | Name | Mag | Type | Distance | Temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aiv | Braen“brow, the many” | 2.04 | M3 III | 15 pc | 3,229 K |
| bhor | Lirfenneth“river-feather, of the” | 2.86 | A9 III | 95 pc | 7,610 K |
| ciel | Lothebraear“glow-bridge, one who” | 2.91 | B3 V | 177 pc | 24,337 K |
| dor | Braesmidien“bridge-forge, belonging to” | 3.20 | B6 V | 125 pc | 16,396 K |
| enn | Orbisaurune“circling-gold, place of” | 3.53 | F3 V | 15 pc | 6,954 K |
| fael | Veinethireth“vein-iron, of the” | 3.81 | K5 I | 297 pc | 4,314 K |
| gyre | Carverisar“cut-morning, one who” | 3.95 | B6 V | 117 pc | 16,266 K |
| hesp | KS 1537 | 4.18 | B5 I | 334 pc | 19,318 K |
How this was made
Vailanol was not designed. It was grown outward from Braen, 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.