Alpha Octantis

Alpha Octantis is a binary star system in the constellation of Octans. The name is Latinized from α Octantis. Despite being labeled the "alpha" star by Lacaille, it is not the brightest star in the constellation—that title belongs to Nu Octantis. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint, yellow-white-hued point of light with an overall apparent visual magnitude of approximately 5.13. The system is located approximately 148 light-years away from the Sun based on parallax.

This is a double-lined spectroscopic binary star which consists of two similar giant stars, each with spectral type F, orbiting each other with a period of just over 9 days and an eccentricity of 0.39. The pair form a Beta Lyrae-type eclipsing binary system, dropping by magnitude 0.04 during the primary eclipse. This system is a bright X-ray source with a luminosity of $0.49$. The system displays an infrared excess suggesting the presence of two debris disks; the first has a temperature of $85.9$ and is orbiting at a distance of $1.93$ from its host star, while the second is a much cooler 40 K and orbits 187.8 AU from the system.