Beta Phoenicis (β Phoenicis, β Phe) is a binary star in the constellation

Phoenix Phoenix most often refers to: * Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore * Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States Phoenix may also refer to: Mythology Greek mythological figures * Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...

. 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 satellite's data yielded a parallax value of 16 milliarcseconds, yet its

standard error The standard error (SE) of a statistic (usually an estimate of a parameter) is the standard deviation of its sampling distribution or an estimate of that standard deviation. If the statistic is the sample mean, it is called the standard error o ...

was larger than the parallax value itself. 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 years, ...

, 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 is a star with substantially larger radius and luminosity than a main-sequence (or ''dwarf'') star of the same surface temperature.Giant star, entry in ''Astronomy Encyclopedia'', ed. Patrick Moore, New York: Oxford University Press ...

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.

References

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