DX Cancri - Giclas 51-15

Giclas 51-15 is a red dwarf star located about 11.8 light-years from our Sun, appearing just northwest of the famous "Beehive" or "Praesepe" open star cluster (M 44) in Cancer. Even though it is the 18th closest star to the Sun, and the closest star in the constellation Cancer, it is far too faint to be seen with the naked eye, at apparent magnitude 14.90. The star may have been discovered by Willem Jacob Luyten (1899-1994), who found the proper motions of over 520,000 stars, despite the loss of sight in one eye, by building an automated photographic plate measuring machine.

G 51-15 is a cool, dim, main-sequence red dwarf of spectral type M6.5 Ve. It contains only 8.7% of the Sun's mass, 11% of its diameter, and about 1/83000th of its luminosity. It is one of the smallest, least massive, and least luminous stars known. Like many red dwarfs, it is a flare star, and has intermittent changes in brightness up to a five-fold increase. Its variable star designation is DX Cancri.