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Beta Hydri

Yellow Star in Hydrus

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Proper Name	None
Bayer Designation	Beta Hydri
Flamsteed Number	None
HR (BSC)	98
HD	2151
Constellation	Hydrus
Right Ascension	0h 25m 45s
Declination	-77° 15' 15"
Distance	24 light years 7 parsecs
Magnitude	Apparent: +2.8 Absolute: +3.5
Spectral Class	G1IV yellow subgiant
Optimum Visibility	October (Usually visible from southern latitudes)
Notes	Beta Hydri is a relatively near neighbour of the Sun at a distance of some twenty-four light years. Like the Sun, it is a yellow G-type star, but it is rather further along its evolutionary path, having expanded and brightened in a manner likely to be followed by the Sun itself over a period of several million years.

Beta Hydri is a third magnitude star in the southern sky, not far to the south of the Small Magellanic Cloud. The brightest star in the constellations Hydrus, it is marginally brighter than Alpha Hydri (also known as the Head of Hydrus). It is a yellow star with some properties in common with our own Sun, but its greater mass and luminosity places in the class of stars known as 'subgiants'. It is extremely nearby in stellar terms, being slightly less than twenty-five light years from the Solar System.

The orange star to the southwest of Beta Hydri is the giant HR 87, which lies nearly twenty-four times farther from the Sun. If the two stars were the same distance away, HR 87 would shine some thirty times more brightly than Beta Hydri. Imagery provided by Aladin sky atlas

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