For most people, birthdays are special days to celebrate the ones we love. It’s a marker, a “welcome to” sign on this journey of life, signifying the completion of another trip around the Sun.
We are all born within a snapshot of time which some believe shapes aspects of who we are and will become, as referenced by astrology with star signs and birth charts.
If the person celebrating this milestone in life is a lover of the night sky, then pointing out their birthday star can be a deep and meaningful experience.
**Use the “Article Contents” menu to quickly find the birthday star chart or any points of interest.
What is a Birthday Star?
A Birthday Star is a star whose light has taken as many years to reach Earth as the number of years in your life.
Space is so incredibly vast it is difficult to imagine or comprehend. The light from a star travels at a constant speed, the speed of light. When we look up into the night sky, the light we see illuminating from stars has traveled great distances, each varying depending on which star we are looking at.
A measurement of distance used when relating to stars is a light-year. One light-year is the time and distance a photon or wavelength of light will have traveled during one year on Earth.
So, for example, if a star is at a distance of 30 light-years from Earth, then its light we see at night has traveled 30 years to be seen by our eyes.
In essence, if today you are 30 years old and gaze upon a star thirty light-years away, that light you are seeing first began its journey in the same year you began your journey of life, your birth.
At that moment, both journeys of light and life intersect amid our wondrous cosmos. This star is your birthday star.
How and Where to Find Your Birthday Star
On a clear dark night, hundreds to thousands of stars may be visible. So finding a particular star, let alone discerning how far away a star is, can seem almost impossible. Luckily as the saying goes, “There’s an app for that!”
There are online birthday star calculators and many apps to choose from. The one I have and will use as an example in this process of how to calculate a star’s distance and where to find them in the night sky is the app SkySafari 7 Pro for IOS. They offer three different tiers: Basic, Plus, and Pro, all paid subscriptions.
We’ll begin by opening the app and following the steps outlined below.