BR Piscium

A very faint star relatively close to the First Point of Aries in the sky, falling slightly to the east of the Circlet formation in Pisces. With a visual magnitude averaging +8.97, BR Piscium is far too faint to be seen with the naked eye. The star lies in the relatively close neighbourhood of the Solar System, at a distance of just nineteen light years.

BR Piscium appears faint in the skies of Earth not because of its distance, but because it is an extremely low-luminosity red dwarf star, emitting very little light energy. Indeed, its energy output is only a fraction that of a typical Sun-like star (equivalent to about 3% that of the Sun itself). This is also a small star, being less than half the Sun's diameter.

The designation style BR indicates that this is a variable star, and in common with many red dwarfs, BR Piscium is a BY Draconis variable. Patterns of starspots and surface activity on the star cause its brightness to fluctuate in an unpredictable way, decreasing its apparent magnitude below +9 from time to time.