Aldulfin marks the tail of Delphinus, a blue-white star whose name is the Arabic for dolphin, adopted from medieval star catalogues.
At a glance
| type | blue-white star (class B) |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 330 light-years (101 pc) |
| its light left it | 330 years ago |
| luminosity | 580 × the Sun |
| radius | 4.04 × the Sun |
| surface temperature | 14,100 K |
| constellation | Delphinus (Dolphin) |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Aldulfin
The card lists a blue-white star of class B, hotter and larger than the Sun and far more luminous. It sits a little apart from the tight diamond of four stars that form the dolphin’s body.
Aldulfin is Epsilon Delphini. Its name, from the Arabic for “the dolphin”, was formally adopted by the IAU in recent years. Delphinus is small but neat, a compact figure leaping just east of Aquila in the summer Milky Way.
What you see in the piece
The dolphin’s stars look close-knit from Earth. In the piece they scatter in depth, and Aldulfin lies well behind its neighbours Rotanev and Sualocin.
Questions
What does Aldulfin mean?
Aldulfin means “the dolphin”, from the Arabic name for the constellation Delphinus.