Tiaki

A luminary of Grus, the Crane, Tiaki bears the Beta designation of that southern constellation. It is a red M-type star — the coolest spectral class among the bright stars — and its colour index of 1.61 is among the reddest recorded here. Tiaki lies roughly 177 light-years away and shines at apparent magnitude 2.07, with an absolute magnitude of −1.60 indicating a red giant of substantial true luminosity. Its ruddy colour is discernible to careful observers and distinguishes it from the hotter, bluer stars that populate much of the surrounding southern sky. Within the compact figure of the Crane, Tiaki is second in Bayer order only to the constellation's Alpha star.