Beta Camelopardalis (β Cam), permanent object 746, is HD 31910 and HIP 23522. SIMBAD gives a visual magnitude near 4.0, a G1 Ib spectral classification and a parallax of 3.8800 ± 0.1635 milliarcseconds: https://simbad.cds.unistra.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=BET+CAM. A simple inverse-parallax estimate is about 258 parsecs, roughly 840 light-years. That calculation is useful for scale, but it is not a claim that distance has no uncertainty or that every catalogue adopts the same input astrometry.
The suffix “Ib” means a lower-luminosity supergiant, not a main-sequence star like the Sun. Its relatively cool G-type spectrum and great emitting area let it shine visibly across that distance. Classification is an interpretation of spectra, and published labels do not always land on precisely the same subtype or luminosity boundary. The robust point is that Beta Cam is an evolved, swollen luminous star; a catalogue suffix should not be mistaken for a direct measurement of mass or age.
Nor does apparent brightness alone reveal that state. A nearby dwarf and a remote supergiant can deliver similar flux at Earth. The spectrum supplies surface conditions, the parallax supplies distance, and interferometry supplies angular size; their combination makes the physical interpretation much stronger than any one measurement.
Interferometry supplies a more direct kind of evidence. Richichi and collaborators combined near-infrared observations and measured a limb-darkened angular diameter of 1.788 ± 0.060 milliarcseconds for HD 31910. “Limb-darkened” means their model accounts for a stellar disk that appears dimmer toward its edge. The paper also inferred a physical radius, but that conversion depends on the adopted distance; the angular diameter is the quantity actually resolved on the sky. Source: Richichi et al. (2009), https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/394/4/1925/1201867.
Camelopardalis is the official Latin constellation name for the Giraffe. It occupies a large, sparse northern area, so the animal is easier to recognize on a chart than in a bright urban sky. The IAU records the abbreviation Cam and the genitive Camelopardalis: https://www.iau.org/IAU/IAU/Astronomy-FAQs/Constellations.aspx. Beta is a Bayer designation inside that mapped region, not evidence that the figure's stars were born together.
The stored position is approximately right ascension 5h 03m and declination +60° 27′. At latitude 45° N, Beta Cam reaches about 75° altitude at upper culmination and never sets, with a lower culmination near 15°. It is circumpolar for observers north of about latitude 29° 33′ N. Those are geometric results from the preserved coordinates; trees, buildings, refraction and twilight still determine whether a real observation succeeds.
For a finder, establish the broad Camelopardalis field between the much more obvious patterns of Auriga, Perseus and the north celestial pole. Use a wide chart or binoculars and confirm the coordinate pattern around the magnitude-4 point instead of expecting a vivid giraffe outline. The accepted rendered finder and its reader link still need inspection, so no exact star-hop is certified here.
To the unaided eye or in a small telescope, Beta Cam remains a point. More aperture may strengthen its warm-white impression, but it cannot reproduce the interferometric disk measurement; one milliarcsecond is far below ordinary atmospheric seeing. The rewarding comparison is conceptual: record the point you can see, then recognize that carefully combined wavefronts measured its tiny apparent breadth. Weekly Moon, darkness and timing belong outside this reusable account.
