Beid (HIP 19587)

Beid is a yellow-white giant star in the constellation Eridanus. At 125 light years away, it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 4.03. It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 18.6 km/s relative to the Sun.

Sky position: RA 4h 11.9m, Dec -6° 50.3'

Common designations: Beid, Omicron-1 Eridani, 38 Eridani, HR 1298, HD 26574, Gaia DR3 3196359642878570368, HIP 19587

Beid has the spectral type F0III. F-type stars are yellow-white stars of about 6,000 to 7,500 K, slightly hotter and more massive than the Sun. Their hydrogen lines are weaker than in A stars and metal lines become prominent. Its luminosity class III marks it as a giant: an evolved star that has left the main sequence and swollen to many times its original size.

How to find Beid in the sky

Beid lies in Eridanus. With a declination of -6° 50.3', it is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere and from the Northern Hemisphere up to about latitude 83° N. It is bright enough to see with the naked eye under dark skies. It is highest in the sky at local midnight around December, which makes the weeks around that month the best time to observe it.

Tabulated data for Beid

Astrometry and spectroscopy

Right Ascension (J2000)	62.96641270° (4h 11.9m)
Declination (J2000)	-6.83757962° (-6° 50.3')
Galactic Longitude	199.32374108°
Galactic Latitude	-38.39119882°
Proper motion RA	10.23 mas/yr
Proper motion Dec	81.86 mas/yr
Parallax	26.11 ± 0.18 mas
Spectral Type	F0III
Radial Velocity	11.00 km/s

Photometry

Band	Magnitude	Abs. Mag.
B	4.36	1.44
V	4.03	1.11
J	3.43	0.51
H	3.25	0.33
K	3.21	0.30

Colour index B-V: +0.33

Derivations

Heliocentric distance: 38.30 pc (125 light years) (0.7% margin of error)
Absolute visual magnitude: 1.11
Transverse velocity: 15.0 km/s
Space velocity relative to the Sun: 18.6 km/s
Galactic position (X, Y, Z): -28.3 pc, -9.9 pc, -23.8 pc
Galactic velocity (U, V, W): -17.3 km/s, 6.7 km/s, 0.2 km/s

Data: Extended Hipparcos Compilation (XHIP) and SIMBAD.