Beta Phoenicis (β Phoenicis, β Phe) is a

binary star A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved as separate stars us ...

in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

Phoenix. Its apparent magnitude is 3.30, meaning that it can be seen with the naked eye ''(see Bortle scale)''. The distance to Beta Phoenicis is poorly known. The original reduction of the

Hipparcos ''Hipparcos'' was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions and distances of ...

satellite's data yielded a

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...

value of 16 milliarcseconds, yet its

standard error The standard error (SE) of a statistic (usually an estimator of a parameter, like the average or mean) is the standard deviation of its sampling distribution or an estimate of that standard deviation. In other words, it is the standard deviati ...

was larger than the parallax value itself. An individual note in the Hipparcos catalogue provided a more likely parallax of , corresponding to a distance of , consistent with the expected distance implied by the absolute visual magnitude of a G8 giant. The new reduction of the Hipparcos data gave 0.12 ± 14.62 milliarcseconds, still unusable. The

General Catalogue of Trigonometric Parallaxes A star catalogue is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the year ...

, an older catalogue of ground-based parallaxes, lists the parallax as 20 ± 16 milliarcseconds, corresponding to about . Beta Phoenicis is a relatively wide

visual binary A visual binary is a gravitationally bound binary star system that can be resolved into two stars. These stars are estimated, via Kepler's third law, to have periods ranging from a few years to thousands of years. A visual binary consists of two st ...

consisting of two G-type

giant star A giant star has a substantially larger radius and luminosity than a main-sequence (or ''dwarf'') star of the same surface temperature. They lie above the main sequence (luminosity class V in the Yerkes spectral classification) on the Hertzsp ...

s, both with

spectral type In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the ...

s of G8III. The two orbit each other every 170.7 years and have a relatively eccentric orbit. The stars are separated by almost one

arcsecond A minute of arc, arcminute (abbreviated as arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of a degree. Since one degree is of a turn, or complete rotation, one arcminute is of a tu ...

Notes

References

{{Stars of Phoenix G-type giants Binary stars Phoenix (constellation) Phoenicis, Beta Durchmusterung objects 006595 005165 0322